


The Task At Hand

by rsadelle



Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, Gossip Girl RPF, The Academy Is...
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Police, Consent Issues, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-15
Updated: 2011-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-27 09:16:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 58,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rsadelle/pseuds/rsadelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>NYPD Vice Detectives Leighton Meester and Victoria Asher go undercover in Gabe Saporta's underground club with the aim of gathering enough evidence to put Saporta away for good. Leighton and Victoria are used to undercover work, but this is a longer operation than usual, and they aren't used to being apart. A "Good Girls Go Bad" video AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Task At Hand

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** Although the sex itself takes place off-screen, Victoria does engage in a romantic and sexual relationship with Saporta as part of her cover. Gabe and Alex's non-celebrity ex-girlfriends are characters in this story.
> 
>  **Bonus Material**
> 
> [Art](http://rsadelle.livejournal.com/364588.html) by [](http://dwg.livejournal.com/profile)[**dwg**](http://dwg.livejournal.com/)
> 
> [Mix 1: Undercover and Still In Love/It's A Bumpy Road](http://rsadelle.livejournal.com/364877.html) by [](http://delphinapterus.livejournal.com/profile)[**delphinapterus**](http://delphinapterus.livejournal.com/)
> 
> [Mix 2: Oceans Won't Freeze](http://rsadelle.livejournal.com/365191.html) by [](http://roadmarks.livejournal.com/profile)[**roadmarks**](http://roadmarks.livejournal.com/)

"Just one second," Victoria said with a smile. She turned away from the john to rummage through her purse, and she knew Leighton was doing the same thing on the other side of him. When she turned around, Leighton had her hand closed over something and she was smiling, smirking really.

Victoria held up her badge, and Leighton opened her hand to show the john hers too. "NYPD. You're under arrest."

They always protested, always, and it never did them any good. They knew prostitution was illegal, and they picked up hookers up in hotel bars anyway.

Leighton had the cuffs in her other hand. She cuffed the john while Victoria read him his rights, and by the time Mike and Michael showed up outside the door, he'd been properly Mirandized and shut up in favor of asking for a lawyer, which made him smarter than a good sixty percent of the scumbags they arrested.

"Got the concierge too," Mike told them when they led the john out of the room. "Had a uni take him in."

Victoria nodded shortly. "We're all going there anyway; we could have taken them both in."

"We didn't want to miss any of the excitement," Michael said. He pulled the door shut behind Leighton. He was always doing that kind of thing; Victoria had trained Mike out of chivalrous gestures meant to reinforce women's weakness long ago, but Leighton and Michael had their own way of working together. Victoria might not always like it, but she and Leighton let each other make their own choices.

"He's lawyering up," Leighton said. "Not much in the way of excitement here."

The four of them surrounded the john in the elevator, and marched him across the lobby where he kept his head down and the people in the lobby and the near side of the bar didn't look directly at any of them.

After Victoria and Mike made sure the john was secured in the back of Leighton and Michael's car, they split up for the drive back to the precinct.

Mike held up the keys, but Victoria shook her head. "You drive." She got in on the passenger side and tipped her head back against the seat. "Fuck, I hate doing one-offs."

"Got the concierge too."

Victoria closed her eyes. "That was an accident. It's been, what? Three months since we had a real case. The john'll pay his fine and the concierge will try to make some kind of deal, and someone else will move in to exploit the working girls in the hotel."

"Jesus, you're cynical."

Victoria opened her eyes and rolled her head to look at him. "Like you think it's going to be any better."

"Jesus," Mike said again. "I'm glad we have tomorrow off. You should take Gizmo to the park and let little kids pet him."

Victoria said, "Fuck you," without heat and listened to the occasional crackle of the radio for the rest of the drive.

*

"Good work," Lieutenant Beckett said.

Leighton nodded and said, "Thank you, sir," for all four of them. She was sitting straight up in the chair in front of him, while Victoria slouched against the door frame and Mike and Michael stood at what passed for attention with them.

"Captain Wentz will be down here on Wednesday."

Leighton didn't need to turn around to see the way everyone else in the room was suddenly focused on Lieutenant Beckett.

"What for?" Mike asked.

"I suppose he'll tell us when he's here." There was a good chance Beckett didn't know, and an equally good chance he just wasn't saying. "Briefing room, nine a.m. Enjoy your day off."

They took that for the dismissal that it was, and filed out of the room, Victoria first and Michael taking up the rear. Leighton slipped past Mike to catch up to Victoria, who was moving toward the locker room at a brisk clip.

"Think Wentz is actually bringing us something or is he just slumming it with us?"

"If he were slumming it for publicity, he'd be out with the beat cops," Victoria pushed through the locker room doors, and they left Mike and Michael behind. "Let's hope it's something good."

They both opened their lockers, and Victoria seemed to stop there, staring into hers without moving.

Leighton put a hand on her back. "V?"

"I really want a shower," Victoria nearly whined. "But I just want to go home."

Leighton chuckled and pulled her coat and her bag with the clothes she'd worn to the precinct out of her locker. "Let's get out of here. You can shower at home."

Victoria shrugged on her coat, covering up both her dress and everything it didn't cover. Leighton waited until Victoria had her purse and then held the locker room door for her.

Mike and Michael were still lingering on the sidewalk, far enough away from the doors that they could smoke.

"Thought we'd hit a club," Mike said. "You two wanna come?"

Leighton shook her head and glanced to her side to see Victoria doing the same. "Not tonight."

"Ask us next time," Victoria said. She didn't wait for Mike or Michael to answer before starting down the sidewalk.

Leighton waved at the boys and followed Victoria, catching up to her at the corner where she was waiting for the light to change. By the time they headed down the steps into the subway, Leighton was more than ready to be home herself.

*

The good thing about working night shifts was that the subway was never too crowded when they went home. Victoria could sit and lean against Leighton and just listen to the sound of the subway sliding through the tunnel toward home.

Home was a scant two blocks from their stop, and the elevator was working, which meant they didn't have to trek the five flights up. They walked it on a regular basis even when the elevator was running, but not when Victoria was tired from a long day of paperwork followed by pretending to be interested in strangers' advances and tired of one-off jobs that didn't make even the slightest dent in the city's crime.

She barely had the door open before Gizmo was jumping at her. Coming home to Gizmo never failed to put a smile on her face, and tonight was no exception.

"Inside." Victoria could hear Leighton smiling, even as she gently pushed both Victoria and Gizmo all the way into the apartment.

They went only so far that Leighton could close the door, and then Victoria crouched down and let her bag slide to the floor as she accepted Gizmo's sloppy doggy kisses.

"Hi, baby. Did you miss me? I missed you." Victoria scratched behind his ears, and his little tail wagged as fast as it possibly could. She stood up and smiled at Leighton, reached for her.

Leighton kissed her for a long time, every moment of it slow and soft, and when she was done, she asked, "Better?" and Victoria nodded because, yes, that made everything better. "Good." Leighton pressed her close for a moment. "You want me to take Gizmo out?"

Victoria looked down, to where Gizmo was sitting back on his haunches and looking up at them. "No, I'll take him." She stepped back and bent down to clip Gizmo's leash to his collar.

No matter how tired Victoria was, she could always find time for Gizmo, and he ran ahead and came back to her as they walked around the block. By the time they got back to their building, Victoria felt like she'd unwound enough that she would be able to sleep.

Leighton was already in bed, hair damp and lounging in the middle of it like she always did when she was the only one in it.

Victoria kicked her shoes into the closet, dropped her clothes on top of Leighton's in the hamper, and took a brief but scalding shower that left her feeling clean for the first time since she'd left the house earlier in the day. She didn't bother with a nightshirt and she could see Leighton's appreciative once-over before she turned out the light and crawled into bed with her.

Leighton scooted over, making room for her. Victoria settled in against her, feeling Leighton's breasts press into her back, Leighton's knees nudge against the back of her own. Leighton pushed Victoria's hair out of the way to kiss the back of her neck. Victoria smiled into the darkness and reached back to rest her hand on Leighton's thigh.

"We got a couple of people off the street," Leighton said. "Not a totally bad day."

"No, not totally bad." Victoria brushed her hand up and down Leighton's thigh. "Day off tomorrow."

"Yeah. We sleeping in?"

Victoria closed her eyes. "Yeah. We can go running on Wednesday. Blow off some steam before we find out what Wentz wants."

"Sounds good." Leighton kissed the back of her neck again.

Victoria knew she would end up moving after she fell asleep, but she left her hand where it was. She liked to fall asleep touching Leighton deliberately.

*

Leighton woke up to the sound of the bedroom door closing. She opened her eyes, expecting to see an empty room, and instead was greeted with the sight of Victoria's breasts being revealed as she peeled out of her casual dress.

"Hey," Leighton rasped.

Victoria was smiling when she emerged from under the cloth. "Hey." She hung up the dress in the closet and came toward the bed.

Leighton knew Victoria wasn't trying to be particularly sexy, but she was anyway. Leighton drank in the welcoming smile on her face, the fullness of her breasts, the curves of her hips.

"I took Gizmo out." Victoria's voice was soft. "And I picked up bagels for breakfast." She climbed into bed, and Leighton curved around her again.

One of the many things Leighton loved about being with Victoria was that there had never been any posturing about the roles in their relationship. She'd had an ex-girlfriend who objected to being spooned for political reasons, and another who would never vacuum. Victoria wouldn't let Mike hold the door for her unnecessarily, but she would pick up bagels if she was up first, and she never minded Leighton curling around her in bed.

"Thanks." Leighton pressed a kiss to the back of Victoria's neck. Victoria was settling in like she thought they were going back to sleep, but Leighton had felt a flare of disappointment when she'd woken up in bed alone and while she couldn't remember the details, she knew her dreams had included dark hair and messy kisses.

Leighton put her hand on Victoria's hip, and then slid it around to the inside of her thigh and tugged Victoria's leg up just a little, so there was enough room for her fingers.

Victoria mmmed, and moved at her direction, opening up to her and sighing when Leighton pressed her fingers there, just between Victoria's legs. Victoria's breathing got heavier, and she hitched her hips against the pressure of Leighton's touch.

They had the day off, and Leighton didn't want anything more than this, Victoria rocking against her, gasping and sighing when the two of them managed to get everything just right.

"I think I was dreaming about this," Leighton murmured.

"Yeah?" Victoria rocked harder and put her hand over Leighton's, holding them both harder against her cunt.

"Yeah." Leighton pressed her lips to the back of Victoria's neck and kept them there. "About making you come."

Victoria pressed their hands tighter in, moved them a little, and her noises, little uhs and ohs of pleasure, came faster until they dissolved into just her hitching breath and then a last "Oh" that broke in the middle as she came.

Leighton didn't try to move until Victoria let go of her hand, and even then she only let her hand slide along Victoria's skin as Victoria turned over onto her back. Victoria's hair was a messy halo around her head on the pillow and her cheeks were flushed. She was the prettiest thing Leighton had ever seen.

*

"Was that like your dream?" Victoria asked. She liked Leighton dreaming about her.

"Yeah, I think so." Leighton leaned up over her and then came down for a kiss.

Victoria slid her hand up Leighton's side to cup one of her breasts, run a thumb over her nipple. It made Leighton shiver, and Victoria smiled into the kiss.

"Did you get off in this dream?"

"I don't know." Leighton's hair made a curtain around them, the light from the only mostly closed blinds filtering through it and catching the highlights. "I only remember you."

"That doesn't seem fair." Victoria rolled them over so Leighton was on her back with Victoria half lying on her, using one leg to hold Leighton's open. "You should definitely get off."

Leighton smiled up at her. "I can get with that plan." Her fingers brushed over Victoria's cheek as she pushed Victoria's hair behind her ear. "You going to do it for me?"

"When have I ever not?" Victoria nipped at Leighton's neck, knowing that Leighton would arch her head back instead of answering. She could feel Leighton's cunt already wet against her thigh. The day off and nothing to do meant she could take her time, but the pleasure still making her limbs heavy made her want to give that back to Leighton without delay.

Victoria rubbed her thumb over Leighton's nipple again, and then pinched it, twisted it between her fingers.

Leighton gasped, "V," and brought one knee up, making it easier for her to rock against Victoria's thigh.

Victoria switched to the other nipple, watching the flush spread across Leighton's chest. She shifted her weight, pressing more of it onto Leighton, giving her something solid to rub against.

Leighton hissed when Victoria let go of her nipple. She reached between them, and Victoria let up enough to let Leighton get her hand between her body and Victoria's thigh. Victoria missed the feeling of Leighton's cunt directly against her skin, but it was more than worth it for the look of hungry desire it put on Leighton's face.

"Good?"

"Jesus, V, don't stop."

Victoria laughed a little and scraped her teeth over Leighton's throat, not hard enough to leave a mark, as she pinched Leighton's nipple again.

Leighton hitched her hips up so she was pressed harder against Victoria, her knuckles digging into Victoria's thigh, and Victoria rocked down against her, trying to match her rhythm.

"There," Leighton said, "there, don't-"

Victoria stopped moving, focused on tracing light circles over Leighton's breasts while Leighton thrust up against her, pressing harder and harder, and Victoria watched her face for that moment when she was almost there. Then she twisted Leighton's nipple hard between her fingers, and Leighton shuddered against her with a sharp cry.

"Told you I would get you off," Victoria said.

Leighton exhaled what might have been a laugh. "You did."

Victoria could feel her still moving her fingers, no doubt riding out the aftershocks. She watched the way Leighton closed her eyes and the way her mouth was still a little open, like it was so good she had to drag in as much air at once as possible.

"Fuck," Leighton said after a moment, when she opened her eyes and smiled at Victoria. "You are really fucking good in bed."

Victoria rolled to the side, letting Leighton have a little more room on the bed, a little more freedom to move if she wanted to. "I know. It's the reason you'll never leave me."

Leighton laughed and rolled with her, draping an arm over Victoria's waist and holding onto her with a comfortingly possessive touch. "I'll never leave you because I fucking love you. The sex is just a bonus."

*

Leighton and Victoria made their way into the bullpen, coffees in hand, at eight forty-five. Mike and Michael were already there, sitting on the edges of Mike and Victoria's desks and trying to look like they'd been there all morning. Leighton was willing to bet they'd only beat them in by five minutes at the most, and that was only because they actually liked the swill that passed for coffee in the breakroom.

Michael came over to his own desk and sat down across from her as Leighton put her purse away and got herself settled. "Good day off?"

Leighton looked up and across the room at Victoria. Their desks were situated so that they could see each other while Mike and Michael had their backs to each other. "Yeah. It was good. Any word yet on what Captain Wentz wants?"

"Mike reckons it's a case, but Beckett's still not talking."

Of course he wasn't. Beckett liked to keep close counsel when it suited him. "We'd all better hope it's a case. V's getting restless." Leighton flicked on her monitor and logged on. There was the usual collection of departmental crap in her email, and a notice informing them that the john from Monday night had pled out to a misdemeanor. Leighton wasn't happy about it, and Victoria was going to be even worse. She looked up in time to see Victoria making a face at her own monitor.

"Same shit, different day," Mike said. He'd left his desk and was looming over Michael's. "Wentz still isn't here."

Victoria came over to join them and leaned on the edge of Leighton's desk. "He likes to make an entrance."

As if summoned by her words, the door to the bullpen opened, and Captain Wentz came ambling through, followed by Lieutenant Beckett, Lieutenant McCoy from Narcotics, and a pair of men Leighton didn't know but guessed, from the way they were following behind everyone else and the way they were carrying themselves, were also from Narcotics.

"You're all early," Wentz said, beaming at them. "Come on into the briefing room and let's get this show on the road."

*

Victoria pushed off of Leighton's desk and felt a bit like she was stuck in a parade, or a line of ducklings, as they all joined the trek to the briefing room. She couldn't help snorting at the image of Captain Wentz as a mama duck.

"What?" Leighton asked.

Victoria shook her head. "Nothing," and when Leighton threw her a questioning look, added, "I'll tell you later."

There were chairs around the briefing room, and they sat in a curving row, new guys at one end, then Mike, Victoria, Leighton, and Michael. With Beckett and McCoy joining Wentz at the front of the room, it just escaped feeling like they were about to be lectured.

"Introductions first," Beckett said. "You've all met Lieutenant McCoy and Captain Wentz. These are Detectives Andy Mrotek and Adam Siska, from narcotics. These four are Detectives Mike Carden, Victoria Asher, Leighton Meester, and Michael Chislett."

They each raised a hand to identify themselves as Beckett named them, and Mrotek and Siska nodded at them.

Beckett made a go ahead gesture at Wentz, who stepped forward like he owned the place. "Gabe Saporta," he said. He slapped a picture onto the board. It was meant to be impressive, and Victoria reminded herself that he'd had time to put tape on it while Beckett was making the introductions.

The man in the picture was smiling at the camera, the kind of smile that said he knew your most intimate desires and would be happy to indulge you in them. He was also wearing a garishly bright plaid shirt and his hair was a mass of untamed curls.

"Saporta runs a club." Another photo on the wall, this time a storefront deli. "Underground in the literal and figurative sense. Gambling and dancing, that we know of. This is a joint vice and narcotics operation because we think there are drugs too."

"There are definitely drugs," Mrotek said.

"We think there are drugs Saporta knows something about," Wentz amended.

"Look," Mrotek leaned forward, elbows on his knees, "nothing goes on in that club that Saporta doesn't know about. He knows every win, every loss, and every hookup. I guarantee you he knows about the drugs, and he's at least getting a cut off the top if he's not heading up the operation. We just can't prove it."

"Butcher," McCoy said, nodding at Mrotek, "has been undercover in Saporta's club for a couple of weeks. We were hoping to take him down on drugs and let the vice shit fall by the wayside, but it's not working out that way. We can't get enough on him."

"This is where you come in," Beckett said.

Victoria knew, from the way he was looking at them, that he really meant her and Leighton.

"Bill says you have extensive undercover experience," Wentz said. "We want the two of you to go undercover in Saporta's club."

*

Leighton could practically feel Victoria vibrating with excitement. This was a real case, something they could sink their teeth into.

"What's our angle?"

Wentz handed them each a file folder, but it was Mrotek who spoke first.

"Saporta likes his women hot, smart, and bitchy. You say no to him and he'll be all over you. We're hoping he'll be a little stupid about it and let too much slip."

"We've got cover identities in place for both of you that should help with that," Wentz said. "Asher, you're new to town and looking to party. Bill says you have the attitude that can make Saporta interested in you."

Leighton pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. Victoria could pull off attitude all right.

"Meester, we're going a different route with you. You're going to be nouveau riche, courtesy of a divorce engineered by a good lawyer, and looking for something to invest in that will pay back big."

"Saporta's not stupid," Mrotek said, "and he's a businessman. We're hoping the lure of an inflow of cash will be enough for him to let you in on the business side of things."

Leighton was already turning that over in her mind, wondering if she could use her parents' history to good advantage in the role. The best identities were the ones that were built on enough truth that she could remember it all at once.

"When do we go in?" Victoria asked.

"Friday," Beckett answered. "You'll be going into Saporta's club. Meester will float around some of the other clubs first. Saporta has eyes and ears all over the city. We're hoping if you hang out elsewhere he'll invite you in."

"Saporta's contacts mean this is a deep cover operation," Wentz said. "You'll have full identities and lives to lead." He nodded at them. "It's in the folders. You won't be able to have contact with your old life or each other. We've got covers in place to let you meet up with Carden and Chislett. They'll be doing whatever you need them to on the outside, but we're going to be relying on you."

"Butcher's on the inside too," McCoy said, "but not as deep. Chances are good Saporta knows he's a cop, so be careful with how close you get."

Leighton tapped a finger against her file folder. "How long?"

"As long as it takes," Wentz said.

"What she means," Victoria said, "is how long should we tell our dog sitter to expect to have Gizmo?"

"Three weeks, minimum," Beckett answered for them. "This is an expensive operation, and we're hoping it won't drag out too long, but tell Anna she can expect to have Gizmo as a long-term guest."

*

Wentz went off with McCoy and Beckett, leaving the rest of them in the briefing room. Victoria opened her folder, and laid it half across her lap and half across Mike's so they could both read it. He was going to need to know what was in it as much as she did. Leighton and Michael were similarly sharing her folder.

"I don't know how much contact we'll be able to have once you're inside," Mrotek said. "So if you want to ask me anything, now's the time."

"Give us a couple of minutes to look this over," Leighton said, saving Victoria the trouble.

Mrotek shrugged, and Victoria tuned him out in favor of reading through the details of her new life. It wasn't too bad; it had been a long time since she was the girl fresh from L.A. and new to New York, but she could remember what that had been like well enough to pull it off.

She did raise her eyebrows at the budget. The brass was serious about this operation if they were throwing that kind of money at it.

Reading every detail over again, enough to have it memorized, could wait. Undercover work was as much about knowing the people involved as it was about knowing the job.

"So," Victoria said, catching Mrotek's attention, "Butcher?"

"Nickname," he answered. "Might as well call me that. It's how Saporta knows me."

Victoria nodded. "Got it. Now, tell us everything you know about Saporta."

"The most important thing you need to know about Saporta is that he's smart. I know him, and he'll come over to congratulate me about a win or some shit, but I'm not even close. I know they're throwing a shitload of money at this, but I don't know if it'll work." Mrotek - Butcher, she was going to have to get used to calling him Butcher, even in her own head - shrugged. "I know sending in a beautiful woman to find out all the villain's secrets is a classic, but," he shrugged again.

"This time there are two of us," Victoria said. "And we're smart too. And we've got hot and bitchy covered. Is there anything else he likes in his women?"

"He has an ex he was serious about, Bianca Dueñas, but I haven't been able to find out much about what she's like personally."

"We did background on her," Siska told them. "We'll get the files to you. She's a buyer in the fashion industry. They met clubbing, but not at his club. Apparently ended because she wanted to settle down and he wanted to party for another couple of years first."

"We'll want to see pictures," Victoria said. She looked back down at the budget for the op. Maybe it wasn't as outrageous as it first appeared; if the ex was in fashion, Victoria and Leighton would have to step up their game.

"I know that look," Mike said. "You're not going to drag us shopping with you, are you?"

"No," Leighton said. "And we shouldn't go ourselves either. We'll have to send someone to pick things up. If Saporta has fashion connections, we don't want to tip him off. We need to dig through everything in every file about this or any other case connected to Saporta. We're not going in there unprepared."

Her easy competence made the base of Victoria's stomach tighten with want. Three weeks, minimum, away from Leighton was going to be the worst part about this operation.

*

"Ready to go?" Victoria asked.

"Almost." Leighton walked through the apartment one more time, making sure everything that needed to be turned off or unplugged actually was. Anna would be by to check on things occasionally, but they might as well make it as easy as possible for her. They already owed her big for taking Gizmo.

"One more thing," she said when she made it back to the door where Victoria was waiting. She pressed in close, one hand threading into Victoria's hair and the other at the small of her back, and kissed her.

Victoria smiled into it and kissed back. It was comfortable and familiar, and she was going to be without it for a while.

"That's your one more thing?" Victoria asked when the kiss ended.

"The most important one." Leighton didn't want to let go of Victoria, but she took her hand out of Victoria's hair anyway and smoothed it down. "I love you."

Victoria stroked her fingers across Leighton's cheek, a touch Leighton leaned into. "Love you too."

Leighton smiled at her, letting her gaze roam across Victoria's face, taking in what it was like now, the softness and slight smile of it. Next time Leighton saw her, she knew, she would look completely different, and it would be a while before she got this again.

"We really have to go," Victoria said, but she was looking back.

Leighton stepped away and turned to pick up her bag. "Okay, let's go." She let Victoria precede her out of the apartment and locked it up behind them.

It was a busy enough time of day that once on the street, they merged into the crowd, and they had to stand on the subway. They had the timing down, though, and they arrived at the precinct exactly on time.

Mike and Michael were standing over Mike's desk, open file folders in front of them, but they both turned at Leighton and Victoria's approach.

"You ready to do this?" Mike asked.

"I was born ready," Victoria said. She hefted her purse up first and emptied it out onto the table, pulling things out and piling them into the waiting box that would be stored in her locker until she got back.

Mike turned the bag upside down and shook it, then went through every one of the pockets, uncovering an old stick of gum, a pair of ticket stubs, and photos from a photo booth that Leighton didn't even remember taking, even though she was in them. The photos and the ticket stubs went into the box. Victoria repacked her purse, clean of anything that would reveal her real identity, and then it was Leighton's turn.

*

Victoria tapped her fingers against the edge of box. She and Leighton had done so much undercover work that it was mostly routine, but they didn't do long-term cover very often, and it always surprised her how much of her life could fit into such a small box.

Lieutenant Beckett emerged from his office just as Leighton put her new ID and cell phone into her thoroughly cleaned bag. "Everything ready?"

"Yes, sir," Michael answered for all of them.

"We just have to store this," Leighton said, "and then we're out of here."

He nodded. "You know everything there is to know about this case. Be careful, and do good work."

"We always do," Victoria said. She picked up her box and waited for Leighton to do the same before heading for the locker room to lock them up. It was their last moment to be alone for a long time. Leighton had to have the same idea, because when Victoria turned to her, Leighton was already looking back.

They'd already said everything they needed to say, and spent half the morning in bed, but Victoria was still grateful for the moment to just take each other in.

"Don't take any stupid chances." Leighton reached across the space between them to brush her fingers against Victoria's.

"You either." Victoria darted in to press her lips against Leighton's in one quick kiss, and then she led the way back to the bullpen. "I'm out of here," she announced to Mike and Michael as soon as they reached it. "Have to go get in costume before I meet the infamous Gabe Saporta."

Mike squeezed her shoulder. "Call us if you need us. See you in three days."

"Three days," Victoria said. She waved to Michael and smiled at Leighton on her way out.

Three blocks away from the precinct, she hailed a cab and gave the driver the address of the building next to the one that held her temporary apartment.

Her new building had a couple of entrances, chosen precisely for its escape routes, and she took one of the less conspicuous ones. She also took the stairs instead of the elevator for the same reason, and arrived in front of 7B without seeing anyone else. That was good; the fewer people who saw her before she transformed herself into the woman she would need to be to get to Saporta the better.

Victoria let herself into the apartment, locked the door behind her, and took a deep breath, taking in the freshly cleaned scent of the place that was going to be her home for three weeks, minimum. Despite the antiseptic cleaning product smell, the place looked entirely lived in. Victoria knew there was a team of people who had taken care of those details, and they had certainly done their job well. If she didn't know better, she would have thought she'd walked into someone else's apartment just after they'd walked out.

*

Leighton shook her head at the extravagance of her new place. A significant portion of the budget for this operation had to be going to the rent on it: a spacious fifteenth-floor apartment in a building where even the hallways had lush carpeting, the elevator never broke, and there was a doorman to receive packages and check in visitors.

Her briefing on her new life had included the tidbit that there was a part-time housekeeper/cook, and the fridge was accordingly filled with meals that only had to be heated up.

Leighton ate one of them, perfectly prepared salmon and the salad that was labeled to go with it, before tackling her transformation into Elle Masters, wealthy divorcee.

The closet was as well stocked as the kitchen, and she only had to choose which dress she wanted to wear. She picked through them and divided them out into two mental categories: Saporta, for anything she thought Saporta would like, based on what they knew of his ex; and Other, for everything else. It would be at least a few days before she went into Saporta's club, so she chose one from the Other category with accessories and makeup to match.

The extravagant divorcee lifestyle came with the budget for cabs, which Leighton was happy to take advantage of. The subway was perfectly fine, but the change was nice, and it meant she could relax in the back of the cab and let herself think through the details of her role.

The place the cab driver left her was a small club with a discrete door, the kind of place frequented only by people who already knew about it. Not that there was anything illegal going on at this location, but it lent it an air of both exclusivity and danger that had to be a thrill to the real divorcees who frequented it.

Leighton, of course, had no problem getting past the bouncer, and she paused just inside, both letting her eyes adjust to the lighting and taking in the place. This particular club was one that Saporta and several of his associates were known to frequent, and while Leighton didn't expect to run into Saporta himself, she did need to start establishing a presence for herself.

She strolled through the place, taking a path that was just indirect enough that much of the club would be able to see her, until she reached the bar. The bartender was no fool, and he came right over to her to take her order. The time it took him to make her Manhattan let Leighton look over the room in the mirror to see who had taken notice of her. There were a few looks being directed her way and one well-dressed man coming across the room.

Leighton took her drink, tipped the bartender heavily, and turned around just in time to let the man think his approach had surprised her.

*

The entrance to Saporta's club was through a door at the back of the small deli from one of Wentz's photographs. Victoria, with Butcher's coaching, gave the code word and paid the cover to the man working the counter. Novarro, according to the files, and part of Saporta's inner circle despite the seemingly low-level job. He'd looked bored when she came in, but had given her a once-over and a surprisingly sweet smile, sweet enough that Victoria half-smiled back, enough to acknowledge it but not enough to break character.

Saporta apparently believed in the theatrical; the staircase was lined with realistic but plastic sides of meat that clubgoers had to pass in order to make it into the club. There was another door at the bottom, one with good soundproofing. The stairs were quiet but for the tapping of Victoria's shoes against the floor, but opening the door unleashed a wave of sound: music, voices, an undertone of clacking roulette wheels and poker chips that carried even over the music.

The place was surprisingly lush, for a club in a basement beneath a deli. It had to occupy the ground beneath more than just the deli, which explained why Saporta owned half the block. There was a fully stocked wooden bar against one wall, an upraised platform along another, DJ booth across from the bar, and gambling tables scattered around the edges of an area that was clearly meant to be the dance floor. Butcher had mentioned poker tables, too, but they weren't in the main room. There was a hallway that no doubt led to the restrooms; perhaps the poker was in a quieter room off the same hallway. Victoria could investigate that later. It wasn't the right area of interest for a first-time visitor to the club.

Instead, she went to the bar and leaned in close to order a rum and Coke. She left the bartender a heavy but not extravagant tip, and worked her way around the dance floor to check out the gambling.

Victoria edged her way into the crowd around a craps game and watched the betting. The croupier was extremely professional. There hadn't been much about Saporta's staff in the briefing materials, but Victoria was willing to bet this guy had worked AC or Vegas before ending up here. It would make sense for Saporta to stock his club with professionals.

She hadn't been watching for more than five minutes or so when Saporta himself slid up to the table. "What you need," he said, throwing his arm around the unlucky man trying his third throw, "is a bit of good luck." He nodded at Victoria. "Why don't you get a lovely lady to blow on those dice for you?"

The guy, who'd started looking discouraged, held out his hand. "Will you?"

Victoria leaned over his hand, gave him a look from under her eyelashes, and blew. The guy didn't look back at the table until the cheering crowd announced his win.

"There you go." Saporta clapped him on the back. "Works every time." He slipped through the crowd and around to Victoria. "Buy you a drink?"

Victoria looked him up and down, taking in his jeans, brightly colored flannel, and white plastic glasses frames. She leaned in close enough to be heard over the music. "I don't accept drinks from strange men."

She walked away from him, downed her drink, and melted into the crowd on the dance floor.

*

Leighton had enough patience that the uselessness of the guy who'd try to pick her up the first night didn't bother her too much. She'd been seen in the club and she'd demonstrated that she was approachable but not willing to go home with the first guy who asked her, both of which were the first step in building up her cover. For the club to really be of any use to her, she'd probably have to go during the week anyway; Saporta and his crew were likely to be at his club on weekends.

The hardest part of her first night as Elle Masters was coming home to an empty apartment and sleeping alone for the first time in a very long time. Even on the rare occasion when Victoria wasn't home, there was Gizmo, who was always excited to partake in the treat of sleeping on the bed. If she was honest with herself, it wasn't Gizmo Leighton missed; it was Victoria. She hadn't worked a case without close, ongoing contact with Victoria since before they'd transferred into Vice.

It took her a long time to fall asleep.

Being a wealthy divorcee had its benefits, however, and one of them was that she could sleep as late as she wanted on Saturday morning, eat breakfast in her robe, and then spend much of the day being pampered at a day spa. The spa was more than just a rich woman's entertainment; Narcotics' background information said that Saporta's ex and at least one of the women connected to one of his crew frequented it, and women undergoing beauty treatments liked to talk. The crowd on Saturday was mostly women with day jobs who couldn't come during the quieter weekdays, but Leighton still might get some good contacts out of it.

"Come out with us tonight," Kelsey, one of the women in a group of five invited Leighton.

Leighton agreed easily, and found herself that evening at a tapas bar in the midst of a cheerfully gossipy group: Kelsey, who was clearly the one who met new people; Stephanie, who was a food writer; Whitney, whose impulse toward cattiness was tempered by the way she clearly cared about the other women; Erika, whose forthrightness made her the one Leighton would most want to be friends with as herself; and Megan, who seemed to fill the role of the quiet one.

"The bartender," Stephanie sighed at one point. "I really think he's the thing that could get me over the pain of my divorce."

Leighton joined the other women in laughing.

"You're out of luck anyway," Whitney said. "Steven and I were in here last week, and we ran into Bianca. She's getting over the pain with the bartender."

Erika winced, and explained to Leighton, "Bianca broke up with a guy she really loved a couple of months ago. They'd been together for four and a half years. It was brutal."

Leighton nodded. "Divorced. I know how that goes." Inside, her mind was racing. If their Bianca was Bianca Dueñas, there had to be a way she could make this useful to her.

*

Victoria decided that she was the kind of party girl who would go back to the same place a second night, and not just because it was her job. She dressed accordingly, paid the cover to Novarro, and descended into the controlled chaos of the club.

Instead of heading for the bar or the dance floor, she made her first stop the cashier to pick up a stack of chips. Every table was as full as they had been on Friday, with the dance floor even more so. Her best chance to actually place a bet was the roulette table.

Victoria had enough practice making her presence unavoidable that she was able to work her way from the back of the crowd to the edge of the table relatively quickly.

She started by putting a few chips down on black, just as a warm-up. She wasn't averse to riskier bets, but she was there to see and be seen, and the more chips she had the longer she could play. The ball landed on black, and once she'd collected her winnings, she eyed the table and the players around it and bet on seventeen.

"So you're a risk-taker," a voice said close to her ear. Victoria hadn't been watching the people around her too closely - she was trying to blend in enough that her presence would be remarkable for reasons other than that there was something wrong about her - and Saporta had managed to reach her side without her notice.

"I can be," she answered without looking away from the table.

"And yet you wouldn't let me buy you a drink."

"I told you, I don't accept drinks from strange men."

The ball landed on twenty-five, and Victoria made a face as the croupier raked her chips in with the rest.

"I'm Gabe Saporta," Saporta said. "Now I'm not a strange man."

"Strange enough." Victoria still didn't look at him, instead watching the croupier pay out bets.

"I own this place."

At that, Victoria did turn. He'd traded the glasses for contacts and the brightly colored flannel for one in a more subdued red and black.

"Really? It's a good club." She held out her hand. "Victoria Teague."

Instead of shaking her hand, he bent over it and brushed his lips over the back of it. On some men, it would have been sleazy. On Saporta it was charming.

"Nice to meet you, Vicky-T. Can I buy you that drink now?"

Victoria glanced at the table, then turned fully away from it. "One drink," she agreed. "But shouldn't you be encouraging people to gamble?"

Saporta put his arm through hers and drew her away from the table. "A drink with me is only going to make you more likely to come back."

*

"So what happened, if you don't mind me asking?" The question came, not unexpectedly, from Erika.

"Left me for the younger secretary," Leighton said. "But I had a better lawyer, so now she's pretty much all he's got."

"Ouch," Kelsey said.

"Pretty much." Leighton swirled her glass, watching the fruit move in the small whirlpool of her sangria. "But now I'm rich and totally free to start a new life."

"Hear, hear." Stephanie raised her glass, and the other women followed suit, Leighton joining in with a grin.

"So what does your new life look like?" Whitney asked. "Aside from meeting a bunch of awesome women like us, of course."

Leighton put her glass down. "Something more exciting than being a stock broker's wife. I've been thinking about investing, not stocks, obviously, but something more interesting, like a club or a restaurant or something." She was going to have to be more direct about that in other places to attract Saporta's attention, but the softer sell would blend better with this group.

"Not a restaurant," Megan advised. "Trust me. My last ex had a restaurant. It's so much work. I barely saw him. If you want a life, try a club."

"I dated a guy who managed a club," Stephanie said. "It was great - we always got in and our drinks were free." She looked at the empty pitcher, then the bar. "Are you sure the bartender's dating Bianca?"

Whitney laughed. "Pretty sure. You know Bianca. I can't imagine her having just a fling on purpose."

Stephanie sighed. "I was so looking forward to someone dulling the pain for me."

"What you don't know," Erika mock-confided to Leighton, "is that Stephanie's been divorced for four years."

"The pain," Stephanie said, completely deadpan, "never ends."

It drew a laugh from the rest of the table, but Leighton didn't join in. She was supposed to be newly divorced, after all, and she could imagine that if she and Victoria were to ever break up, the pain might not end.

Kelsey put her hand on Leighton's arm. "You'll have to learn not to mind us. None of us have been through a breakup recently. They're all old hurts."

Leighton nodded, because she understood and because Elle Masters would understand.

Megan looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. "Maybe we should call Bianca. You can compare stories." She flashed a smile at Stephanie. "And we can get the scoop on the bartender."

Erika already had her phone out. "I'll do it."

Leighton couldn't believe it had been that easy.

*

Victoria was frankly amazed with the speed the bartender got their drinks. She wasn't sure if it was just prudence on his part or if it was indicative of what Saporta expected from his employees, but she wasn't about to complain either way.

Saporta ordered Red Bull and vodka, and Victoria made a face at him that made him laugh.

"Don't knock it till you try it."

"I'll stick to this, thanks," she said, holding up her rum and Coke.

"Maybe tonight," he said, "but I'll get you to try this." There wasn't the slightest bit of hesitation in it. He sipped his drink, never taking his eyes off of her. "So what brings you to my club, Victoria Teague?"

"What brings anyone here? I like to party." Victoria turned half away from him, enough to watch the room but not enough that she couldn't also watch him. The look on his face was edging toward frustration, but she was betting on Butcher's information being right and that it was the kind of frustration that would keep him interested.

"So where'd you hear about my club?" Saporta clearly wasn't the type to give up after half a brush off.

"Oh, a friend of mine, Adrian?" Victoria let her voice tilt the name up into a question. "When he heard I was moving to New York, he told me I had to come here." It helped that she actually did know Adrian and that he was bicoastal, giving truth to the lie.

Victoria was careful not to fidget under Saporta's steady gaze. Adrian had actually been to Saporta's club once, but he wasn't a regular; had, in fact, been one of the people to tip off the department that it might be worth investigating.

"Don't think I know him."

"I'm not sure it's really his kind of place. I mean, he'll go out with people, but," Victoria shrugged, "his parents met at a commune, so, you know. Not so much with the decadent partying."

"But you are." The corners of Saporta's mouth turned up in a small, surprisingly sweet smile.

"'Decadent partying' is practically my middle name."

Saporta's smile turned into an all out grin. Victoria didn't even think about it before she turned so she was looking more at him than at the room.

"Were your parents from some kind of alternative culture too?"

Victoria returned his grin. "No. My real middle name's Jane, and I'm not sure my parents would quite approve of this."

"Which part?" Saporta asked. "The drinking, the gambling, the rampant partying?"

"Oh, all of that," she said, "but mostly I was thinking of letting strange men buy me drinks." Victoria swallowed the last of her drink and put the glass on the bar. "But I appreciate it. Thank you." She pushed herself off of her bar stool and walked away from Saporta for the second time in two days. Butcher had better have been right about him.

When she got to the roulette table and turned enough to see him through the crowd, he was still sitting at the bar, sipping his drink and watching her. She stopped watching back and placed a bet.

*

"There's Bianca," Whitney said.

Leighton turned to look at the woman coming through the door. She recognized her, of course, from the file on her, but Elle didn't know her, so Leighton took her in as if she were seeing her for the first time. A little taller than Leighton, but not as tall as Victoria. Expensively dressed, high heels, wavy blond hair.

Dueñas waved at them but went to the bar first. The whole group of women watched her as she ordered a drink and leaned across the bar to get a kiss from the bartender.

Stephanie heaved a sigh of disappointment.

Erika swatted at her arm. "Stop that."

Dueñas reached them and put her drink down on the table before making her way around to hug everyone.

"This is Elle," Kelsey said. "We met her at the spa today. Elle, this is Bianca."

"Nice to meet you," Leighton said, meaning every word of it.

"So," Stephanie said, "we all hope you're doing well and all of that, but what we really want to know is: what's the story with the bartender?"

"What Stephanie means," Erika said while the others were laughing, "is that she's jealous you got there first."

Dueñas glanced back at the bar before answering. "His name's Antonio." The smile on her face said he was more than just a name, but the name was what Leighton noted. She would give it to Michael when she saw him. Maybe he was just an innocent bystander, but maybe there was something there she needed to know.

"How'd you meet him?" Whitney asked.

"Some friends from work and I came in here one night, and he gave me his number." Dueñas tucked her hair back. "I know a lot of bartenders, and they're more likely to get numbers than give them."

"Bianca's ex owns a club," Megan explained to Leighton.

"Really?" Leighton leaned forward. "I'm thinking about investing in a club."

"Elle got everything in the divorce," Kelsey said to Dueñas.

"A club's not a bad idea," Dueñas said. "Good ones make steady money, and even ones that fail will get you in the door in the scene. Actually, you should talk to Gabe. My ex. He might know of something, or he was talking about expanding." She lowered her voice a little. "His club isn't entirely aboveboard. It's sort of half dancing and half gambling, but if you don't mind that kind of thing."

"I definitely don't," Leighton said. "I was married to a stock broker, and now I'm looking to have some fun."

"Give me your number," Dueñas said, handing over her phone. "I'll let him know you're looking to invest and get him to call you."

Leighton watched the other women out of the corner of her eye as she put her number into Dueñas's phone. They were practically vibrating with curiosity.

Surprisingly it was Megan who asked, "You still talk to Gabe?"

Something in Dueñas's face changed, and she was no longer the cool, confident woman who'd joined them. She looked softer, almost wistful.

"Yeah, well, just because we aren't together doesn't mean I don't love him."

*

Victoria's buzzer rang on Sunday afternoon just as she was trying to decide what Victoria Teague would do with herself on a Sunday. There was a theater showing independent films that she thought might be worth the trek, or she could order Chinese food and watch TV.

When the voice coming through the speaker said, "Flower delivery for Victoria Teague," Victoria hesitated a moment. It could be flowers, or it could be a cover for something else. Victoria Teague, she thought, would be naive enough - or reckless enough - to buzz a delivery up instead of getting it herself, and Victoria Asher could take care of herself.

She kept the locks on, though, and peered through the peephole to be sure the guy was actually carrying flowers before she opened the door just wide enough to sign for them and take the vase from him. It was easier than she thought to sign "Victoria Teague."

The flowers themselves were a simple arrangement of purple tulips set against smooth lengths of greenery, with a matching purple ribbon around the vase and an envelope held in a bit of plastic in the middle of them. Victoria set the vase down on the kitchen counter and opened the envelope.

> You're a mystery, Victoria Teague, and I'm fond of mysteries. Come to the club on Tuesday. It'll be quiet. We can talk.
> 
> ♥,  
> Gabe

  
Victoria put the note down on the counter. She'd told him nothing more than her name and that she was new in town, and he'd found where she lived in less than twenty-four hours. Butcher was definitely right about the extent of Saporta's knowledge of what happened in his club. He also, it seemed, was right about how to attract Saporta's attention.

Victoria herself found it creepy, but Victoria Teague might like it. She was a party girl, after all, and a risk-taker who was willing to flirt with strangers when it suited her.

Victoria moved the flowers around the apartment, trying to figure out where they looked best, while she worked her way around the question. The hardest part was trying to separate out what Victoria Teague might want from her own eagerness to get on with the next phase of her case. The faster she could get close to Saporta the faster she could get the evidence they needed to take him down.

The flowers would really look best on the dresser in the bedroom, but Victoria couldn't bring herself to put them there. She didn't need Saporta that far inside her personal space. She settled for putting them on the end table in the living room.

Saporta liked that Victoria was a mystery, so she would continue to be one. She would go back to the club on a night that was likely to be quiet, but not Tuesday. It wouldn't do to be at his beck and call.

*

Leighton's phone rang on Monday afternoon just as she was taking her coffee from the barista at the Starbucks just around the corner from her apartment. She answered it with a crisp, "Elle Masters," and ducked around the two other people waiting.

"Elle," an unfamiliar male voice said, "this is Gabe Saporta. Bianca said you were interested in investing in a club."

Leighton settled into a chair at a table near the window. There were a handful of magazines in her bag she'd been planning to read, but this was better.

"That's right." Victoria could play hard to get, and Leighton would say no to any advances he might make, but when it came to business, she needed to be direct. "You must be the ex who owns one."

"That's me. Bianca seems to think you're worth talking to, which means I'll give you a chance. Can you meet me for a drink tonight?"

"I'm sorry," Leighton said, "I'm busy tonight." That wasn't even a lie, so if Saporta decided to check up on her it would hold up. "How about tomorrow?"

"I have plans tomorrow evening. Wednesday?"

"Wednesday will be fine. Where should I meet you?"

"Coldman's," Saporta said. "Do you know where it is?"

Leighton did - it was on her list of places to be seen to get in with Saporta's crowd - but Elle wouldn't. "Never even heard of it," she said cheerfully, and pretended to be taking notes while Saporta gave her an address.

"Six-thirty," Saporta said.

"Sounds perfect. Thank you for agreeing to this."

"Don't thank me," Saporta said, "thank Bianca. She's the one who got you this far, and I might not be able to help you. See you Wednesday." He hung up with a click, and Leighton shook her head at her phone as she put it down on the table. He was proving to be a presumptuous ass as well as a criminal. Leighton sipped her coffee and gazed out the window, automatically noting but not really paying attention to the people passing by. She really hadn't expected to meet Saporta quite so quickly. The original plan had called for her to slowly work her way into his acquaintance. If Victoria was doing half as well as she was, they might wrap this case up and be home in no time.

Leighton shook her head at herself and pulled her stack of magazines out of her purse. Four days in and she was already wishing for her own bed and Victoria. Michael would be sympathetic if she told him, but he'd tell Mike who would roll his eyes at their domesticity. Of course, he'd probably also tell Victoria, and Leighton had no problem with Victoria knowing she missed her.

*

Victoria met with Mike on Monday afternoon to report in on her progress. The story they were telling in case anyone asked was that Mike was her mom's friend's son who'd been drafted to keep at least a minimal eye on her now that she'd just moved to New York. The reality was that Mike met her in a coffee shop that was almost empty and they sat in a corner where she told him what little she'd learned about Saporta.

"Jesus Christ," Mike said when she told him about the flowers. "That's fucking creepy."

"Tell me about it." Victoria sipped at her latte. "How the fuck did he even find me?"

"Could've had you followed."

"Yeah, that makes me feel better." Victoria tapped her fingers against the table. "The thing is that he's actually pretty fucking charming in person. Like I totally see what makes him a successful club operator. He probably has women falling all over him."

"And you've caught his attention. That's good."

"Yep. Now if I can just get him to tell me something useful."

Mike shrugged. "Guy like that, might be arrogant enough to believe nothing can take him down."

"That's what I'm counting on. I'm not sure how far he'll trust a woman he's trying to impress, but if he thinks he's safe, he might not be careful."

"Your cover's good," Mike said. "It'll hold."

Victoria shrugged. She wasn't too worried about that yet. She hadn't done anything to arouse Saporta's suspicion and nothing in Narcotics' background info suggested Saporta was violent. She could take care of herself, anyway.

"You need anything from the outside?"

Victoria laughed. "You make it sound like I'm in prison." She spread her hands on the table. "I've got an apartment, food, money for rent, clothes, coffee." She lifted her cup. "What more could I want?"

Mike shook his head. "We'll look into his staff, see what we can find. If you can get any more names, that'll help." He fiddled with his coffee, watching her for a moment.

Victoria just waited; if Saporta didn't rattle her, there was no way Mike was going to. He sighed, and she smirked in triumph.

"Want me to get a message to Leighton for you?"

Victoria's stomach dropped. She'd been working on the case, keeping herself busy with building up her cover and doing what Victoria Teague would do, and hadn't given herself time to think about Leighton. The moment Mike said her name, though, Leighton was all she could think about, and she wanted her there with an almost physical ache.

She hadn't really thought about passing messages through Mike and Michael, although it made sense. There wasn't really anything to say. It had only been four days, and Leighton knew that Victoria loved her, and that she would miss her while they were apart.

"No," she said to Mike. "But now I really do feel like I'm in prison."

"No conjugal visits though."

Mike smirked, and Victoria laughed, even as she wished for a sugar packet or a stirrer to throw at him.

*

Leighton met with Michael, whose cover was that he was a life coach to only a select collection of wealthy clients, on Monday and gave him the names of the bartender and the women from the spa.

She then spent Tuesday and Wednesday doing the things Elle Masters would do: shopping, having her nails done, buying and starting to read through a stack of books on business ownership with an emphasis on entertainment businesses.

On Wednesday night, she walked through the door of Coldman's at precisely six-thirty. She, of course, knew what Saporta looked like and spotted him almost immediately, but she wasn't supposed to know that, and so she waited just inside the entryway for a moment, scanning the bar in a completely obvious way.

Saporta stood up from the table he'd been sitting at and came over to her. "Elle?"

Leighton smiled at him. "Yes. Gabe?"

"That's me. This way." Saporta held out an arm to wave her into the bar, and she followed him across the floor to the table against a wall where he had the view of the room and she didn't. Elle Masters wouldn't notice things like that, so Leighton settled herself into the chair across from him and ordered a Manhattan when a waitress stopped by their table almost the moment Leighton sat down.

"So," Saporta said when they both had drinks in front of them, "you think you want to invest in a club."

"I do." Leighton sat back and casually crossed one leg over the other, watching the way his eyes dipped to watch. "My marriage was exceedingly dull and my husband was part of every financial decision I made. Now I have the money and I want some excitement. A club seems like the way to do it."

"Investing is definitely the right choice then. When you run the club, there's a lot of work to do. If you're just putting in the money," he shrugged, "it's more fun, less work."

Leighton smiled with all her teeth. "I'm not afraid of a little work."

"I'm sure you're not," Saporta said, smiling back at her in what was probably supposed to be a reassuring manner but came across as more condescending, "but if you want all the fun parts, investing is the way to go."

"In that case, do you know of anyone looking for investors?"

Saporta nodded slowly. "There's always someone looking for investors. Do you know what kind of club you're looking for?"

"Oh, you know." Leighton waved her hand. "Something fun, where people go to have a good time. Nothing too pretentious, nothing seedy, not the kind of place where stockbrokers go after closing a deal."

Saporta looked like he was about to say something, but instead pulled a phone out of his pocket and held up a finger telling her to wait a moment.

Leighton couldn't hear the other end of the conversation, but Saporta said, "She's there?" and then, "Yeah, last night," and then, "Fifteen minutes," and then he hung up.

"Club business," he said with a smile. "Never stops, and there are things I need to take care of. The drink's on me." He dropped cash on the table. "Stay and enjoy it. I'll come up with a list for you and call you later this week." He didn't even wait for Leighton's agreement before leaving.

*

Victoria stayed away from the club on Tuesday, and away from any of Saporta's known haunts. It could only work to her advantage to make him wait.

On Wednesday night, she dressed for Saporta's club, dress that hugged her curves, makeup that would pop in the dim lighting, heels high enough to keep Saporta from towering over her, and showed up earlier than she thought Victoria Teague would usually go out. But then, Saporta wasn't usual by anyone's standards, and even party girls liked to switch it up sometimes.

Saporta wasn't there, or at least not on the floor. He wouldn't have been hard to spot; the early Wednesday night crowd was small, mostly dedicated gamblers at the tables, a few people at the bar, and a couple slow dancing out of time with the music.

Victoria picked up a handful of chips and bet on a few of rounds of roulette, watched a woman lose, then win, then lose again at craps, and played three hands of blackjack. She was deciding whether or not to buy in for a fourth when a hand came over her shoulder and put a drink down on the table next to her. Victoria startled a little, and turned toward the person behind her. Saporta, of course, sliding into the chair next to her.

"You're late," he said. "I expected you yesterday."

Victoria tossed her hair back. "I had better things to do yesterday." She picked up her drink and her chips and stood up. She might as well free up the table for anyone else who wanted to play; she certainly wasn't going to when she could put her focus on playing Saporta instead.

"Now that can't possibly be true." Saporta caught her elbow and guided her to a table, far enough from the dance floor that it was slightly quieter.

"Believe what you want." Victoria pulled her arm away before they quite got to the table and chose her own chair.

"If you really weren't interested, you wouldn't have come today." The square table had four chairs; Saporta took one next to her.

Victoria shrugged. "I didn't have anything better to do today."

"I think you're interested. I think you're here because you like having the club owner buying you drinks. I think you liked the flowers."

"They are lovely. Thank you." Victoria sipped her drink. Rum and Coke, exactly what she'd ordered on Saturday. "And who wouldn't like having someone else buy their drinks?"

Saporta's fingers trailed along her forearm. "I think you like it better that I'm buying them."

His touch tickled; Victoria fought not to twitch away from it.

"Tell me what else you like, Vicky-T."

That she could handle. "Partying. Independent film. MAC lipstick." She smiled so his gaze would be drawn to it on her lips. "Dancing. Occasional risk-taking."

Saporta's touch firmed into his hand around her wrist. "Let's take care of a couple of those. Dance with me."

Victoria looked at him from under her lashes, as if she were contemplating it. She had to give it to him; he didn't break a sweat, just waited her out.

"Just this once."

*

Leighton had never guessed that being a wealthy divorcee could be quite so exhausting. It wasn't so much that she was doing anything to tire herself out, but the days just dragged on in an endless loop of shopping, coffee, and trips to the gym. She kept going to bars and clubs, too, to try to build up her cover, but that wasn't getting her any closer to Saporta. Unless he really did have eyes everywhere and there were people there reporting back to him. She was almost hoping he did, so her efforts wouldn't be in vain.

It was a relief when Saporta's number showed up on her phone on Friday afternoon while she was again at the spa.

"I've been thinking about what you're looking for," Saporta said. "Why don't you come down to my club this evening and see what it's like from the business end of things. See if this is what you really want."

Leighton grinned, but wiped it off her face before she spoke. "I'd love to." She took down the address and code word he rattled off to her, and made sure to leave her manicurist a hefty tip.

She had planned another exciting afternoon of reading at Starbucks, but she scrapped it in favor of going home and picking out an outfit that said "ready to have fun," "money," and "trustworthy" all at once.

Saporta hadn't given her a time, so Leighton had dinner first, and flipped through a magazine or two. She didn't leave the house until almost nine, when she called a cab and gave the driver the address of the deli.

Thank goodness for New York cab drivers who didn't bat an eye at taking her from an expensive apartment building to a storefront deli. He probably thought she was a working girl of some kind, but he wasn't who she had to prove herself to.

Even though Butcher and Victoria would do for witnesses, even if they couldn't flip anyone else below Saporta in his organization, Leighton was careful to note the details of the deli, Novarro behind the counter taking money and the code word, and the placement of the door to the club itself.

Saporta's rumored ability to know all made her think he probably had cameras everywhere - store, club, stairwell, and all. She tried to look for them without looking like she was looking for them, but aside from the obvious theft deterrent one over the cash register in the deli, she couldn't spot them.

Still, the possibility of their presence meant she made her way down the stairs at a brisk pace and didn't hesitate for a second before opening the door into the club.

*

Victoria stuck to her word and danced only one song with Saporta on Wednesday before she left to party somewhere else.

On Thursday, she buzzed up a delivery man and accepted a box that held a handful of extremely expensive chocolates and a card inviting her back to the club.

She thought about blowing him off again, but even a party girl would be intrigued by a guy who would send her flowers and chocolates in the same week, so instead she dressed in an extremely tight, extremely short skirt, made sure her makeup was absolutely perfect, and went to Saporta's club on Friday night.

This time, she skipped the gambling tables altogether and headed straight for the dance floor, melding into the crowd that was already there and moving to the music pouring out of the speakers. It didn't take more than a couple of songs before someone's hands settled on her waist, and she turned into the touch to find Saporta already moving with her.

Saporta's hands settled at the small of her back, and she smiled briefly at him before reaching up and putting her arms around him, her hands clasped together at the back of his neck. He was very much in charge, directing her to move with him and keeping them both on the beat and in the space on the floor he wanted them to be in.

Victoria couldn't help but compare it to dancing with Leighton. If she were with Leighton, chances were good they'd be laughing, or at least smiling at each other, and moving together effortlessly, without the need for either one of them to direct the other. Dancing with Leighton also usually resulted in the two of them tumbling into bed - or onto the couch or up against the wall, if they couldn't wait - and that wasn't how this dance was going to end.

Saporta leaned down to ask, "Buy you a drink?"

Victoria nodded. The dance floor was getting a little too crowded, and she was ready for some space; drinks would give her that.

Saporta found her a stool at the bar, more, she thought, through sheer height and presence than because it was his club. Surely not everyone who was there knew who he was. Some of them had to think he was just some outrageously dressed guy who was trying to pick her up. Saporta ordered their drinks, too, and handed Victoria her rum and Coke.

"You sure you don't want to try this?" He held up his Red Bull and vodka, and Victoria scrunched up her nose, making him laugh.

"Maybe when hell freezes over."

His laugh got louder and then settled into a grin. "You are a delight, Vicky-T. I'm glad you came to see me again."

Victoria raised her eyebrows at him. "What makes you think I came to see you?" She gestured at the club with her glass. "I just wanted to party, and I know your club is a good time."

*

Leighton didn't let the noise of the club faze her. She went through the door, letting it fall shut behind her, and glanced around, taking in the place. Gambling tables, dance floor, bar, all of it full of people there to have a good time.

Leighton didn't see Saporta, but given his all-knowing nature, it wouldn't be long before he found her or she found him, so she wandered her way through the tables, stopping here and there to watch people gambling. Professional croupiers, everything as above board as an underground gambling establishment could be. The gamblers seemed to appreciate it, and Leighton guessed they were mostly people there just to have fun, not addicts who would be better served by a place where they could have more constant access to the action.

She was watching the roulette wheel spin when something caught her eye, and she looked across the club to see Saporta's hand cupping Victoria's elbow as they made their way from the dance floor to the bar.

Leighton was hit with a stunning flash of jealousy. She was pretty sure she managed to keep it off her face, but she was surprised by herself; usually other people flirting with Victoria didn't bother her. It was, she supposed, worse when she couldn't pull Victoria back out onto the dance floor herself.

The roulette wheel stopped spinning, the ball stopped bouncing, and the croupier started divvying up bets. Leighton abandoned her place at the edge of the table for someone else to take and went to the bar.

Saporta was too canny not to keep an eye on his club, even while having a drink with Victoria, which meant he saw her coming. The smile on his face changed from the flirtatious one he'd been using on Victoria to the slightly cooler, businesslike one he'd given Leighton the last time they'd met.

"Elle," he said, getting up and greeting her with a handshake. "Glad you could make it."

Leighton nodded. "I hope I'm not interrupting."

The flirtatious smile made another appearance. "A little. Victoria, this is Elle. She's a business associate. Elle, this is Victoria."

Leighton shook Victoria's hand, careful not to let on that Victoria's touch made her heart beat faster.

"Nice to meet you," Victoria said, managing to be both sincere and the bored party girl at the same time.

"Likewise."

"Let me get you a drink." Saporta gestured the bartender over and ordered her a Manhattan without asking.

"Actually," Leighton said, leaning past him to speak to the bartender herself, "I'll have a martini." She smiled at Saporta, hoping that it conveyed both her thanks for the offer of a drink and her intention not to let him walk all over her.

"A martini then." Saporta said to the bartender, and further instructed him, "Elle's drinks are on the house tonight."

*

Victoria sipped at her drink to keep from laughing at the power struggle between Leighton and Saporta. Where Victoria's strategy was to be obviously contrary, Leighton was making it look like she was completely oblivious to the way she was thwarting Saporta's attempts to take charge.

Once Leighton had a drink, Saporta leaned closer to Victoria. "Elle's thinking about investing in a club. I invited her to come see what exactly that means."

Victoria raised her eyebrows at him, then turned to Leighton. "From what I can tell, it means you get to drink and dance with the clientele."

Saporta laughed, a pleased little rumble. "Only when it's worth it." His eyes raked over her body, and she was very aware of the way her skirt had slid up when she sat down and just how tight her top stretched across her breasts. "You're definitely worth it."

Victoria gave him the briefest of smiles.

"Of course," Saporta went on, turning to include Leighton again, "that's not all that goes into it. There's all kinds of boring shit involved in running a club. But partying with the clientele is a definite bonus."

"I can tell," Leighton said, and Victoria could almost feel the sweep of Leighton's eyes taking her in. "But I'm not quite looking to party like that."

"Maybe not yet, but you will," Saporta predicted. "What do you think of my club so far?"

Victoria watched Leighton look around the room. She hated being so close but not being able to touch Leighton, and she barely stifled a jump when Saporta's hand landed on her shoulder. She let it stay because she was supposed to be into him, but she wished it were Leighton's instead.

"Busy," Leighton answered. "Is it always like this?"

"Fridays and Saturdays," Saporta answered. "Weekdays are quieter, but we get enough business that we're open all week."

"Successful," Leighton said.

Victoria turned halfway away from them, looking at the dance floor instead. Victoria Teague was not a woman who would suffer business discussion for long. Saporta moved, and then his arm was around her waist, making it that much more difficult for her to slip away from them.

"Very," Saporta said. "We have a good business model. Partying all night, a service you can't get anywhere else in the city, and good music. It all brings people in and keeps them coming back."

"That's what makes for a successful club," Leighton said, "or so say all the investment books I've been reading."

"They're right, but it's really too loud out here for this conversation. Come on back to the office." Saporta squeezed Victoria's hip and leaned close to her. "This won't take too long. I'll find you when I'm done."

"If I'm still here," Victoria said. She nodded shortly at Leighton, who nodded back with a slight smirk of amusement.

"You like my club," Saporta said. "You like me. You're not going anywhere." He and Leighton walked away before Victoria could answer him. That was probably for the best; she wasn't sure Victoria Teague would actually say, "Like hell," to that, even though she was most definitely going to leave before Saporta got back.

*

Saporta's office, located down a hallway that also included doors to the restrooms and one marked "Poker," was equipped with the same soundproofing that kept the noise of the club from spilling up the stairs into the deli.

Instead of taking the chair behind the desk, Saporta sat on the far end of the couch pushed against one wall and gestured Leighton onto the other end. She looked around the room as she sat carefully, balancing both her purse and her drink as she sank into the plush cushions. Saporta's desk was an intimidatingly wide L-shaped expanse of wood unmarred by any clutter. There was a monitor tucked at the bend of the L, angled to be seen only by someone behind the desk, a printer at the far end, and a small tray at the corner closest to the door where, Leighton supposed, people could leave things for him when he wasn't there. It was empty at the moment.

There were two chairs in front of the desk and a filing cabinet with a lock behind it.

The walls held photographs, Saporta smiling out at the camera from most of them between groups of people Leighton recognized from the background info on his crew, although there were a large number of strangers mixed in as well. She didn't see Dueñas anywhere, although surely she'd been there before, which meant that Saporta had enough photos good enough to display to be able to switch them out when necessary. Leighton wondered who else used to be on his walls.

"The most exciting club in the world always has a boring office behind it," Saporta said. "Mine happens to be on site, but that's because I have just the one. If you get in on a club owned by someone with multiple places, chances are good they'll have one office to administer them all. A club's a lot like any other business." He gestured at the office. "Computer, files, space for meeting anyone who needs to be met. I know you want excitement, but that all happens on the outside. This part isn't any more glamorous than anything else."

"Except then you get to go party with the clientele," Leighton said.

"Except that." A smile creased Saporta's face. "Definitely a bonus. But back here, it's all bookkeeping and staffing. If you're just an investor, you'll want to keep an eye on the finances, but you won't have to deal with the day to day shit." Saporta tipped back the end of his drink. "You'll get a return on your investment and get to party with the clientele."

Leighton weighed the moment, and decided to plunge ahead; Elle Masters needed to prove she was willing to be bold. "And how's the return on investment on your club?"

*

Victoria was watching the room, so it wasn't a surprise when Butcher slid into the slight space between her and the person next to her.

"Hi." He leaned in close. "Looks like you're all alone."

Victoria smiled at him, deliberately friendly, knowing someone was likely to see it and report back to Saporta. "Not anymore."

"I'd offer to buy you a drink, but." He shrugged, and she looked down at the drink in her hands.

Victoria twisted to put her glass down on the bar. "I'd rather dance anyway. I'm Victoria."

"Butcher." Butcher took the hand she held out to him and let her lead him onto the dance floor.

Butcher didn't quite have Saporta's effortless command of rhythm, but he was nice to dance with. Although the other dancers pushed them close together, Butcher left her enough space to move on her own, and it was Victoria who closed it and pulled him close to her. He didn't try to direct her then, either, and Victoria found herself genuinely enjoying it. That made it easy to turn an uncomplicated smile on him for the benefit of anyone watching them.

He smiled back and only then pulled her closer.

The music changed and changed again, and Saporta didn't show up to collect her. Maybe whatever combination of electronics and people he had watching her didn't care who she danced with as long as she didn't leave.

Victoria Teague had better things to do than wait around for a guy she wasn't sure she was that into anyway. Victoria Asher knew that leaving was probably a good way to keep Saporta's interest. From the looks she'd seen women throwing them earlier in the evening, it probably didn't happen to him that often.

"I'm going to get out of here." She had to raise her voice to be heard over the music. "Thanks for the dance."

"Thank you," Butcher said. "It's been a pleasure."

Victoria smiled at him again, and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. Butcher had said Saporta knew about every hookup that happened in the club; surely that would get back to him.

Victoria had enough practice working her way through crowded spaces that getting off the dance floor was the work of a bare minute, and getting from there to the exit was practically a cakewalk. No one stopped her to talk, and if Saporta's people were watching her, they were good enough to do it without being noticed.

She was only a couple of blocks from a subway stop, and she flipped through her phone as she waited for a train, choosing her next destination. She picked another club that was closer to the apartment and spent a few more hours dancing with strangers before she decided Victoria Teague's budget could spare the money for a cab home.

Only when she was in the apartment, faced with Saporta's flowers and an empty bed, did she let the party girl facade drop. She'd known it would be hard to be away from Leighton, but she hadn't realized how much worse it would be with Saporta touching her instead.

*

"Excellent," Saporta answered promptly. "But I'm not looking for investors."

Leighton waved away his concern. "Everyone's always looking for investors. This place must take a lot of capital to run."

"This place takes in a lot of capital."

Leighton sipped her drink and let her lips settle into a slight smile. "Ever think about expanding?"

"You are persistent." Saporta sounded as if he appreciated that. "I am expanding my business operations at the moment, but I have the cash to cover it."

"And that means the liability is all yours. If you had a partner, you could spread the risk around."

Saporta leaned forward, his eyes boring into hers. "And why are you so eager to buy your way into my affections?"

Leighton laughed sharply. "I don't give a shit about your affections. I'm done with men." She cut her hand through the air, then smiled. "At least for now. I want to buy my way into your club."

"Just like that."

"Every decision in my life," she said, "from marrying my cheating bastard of an ex to divorcing him to buying every fucking piece of furniture we owned has been very, very carefully considered." She shrugged with one shoulder. "I'm living an exciting life now, and I'm ready to jump into something."

"And the fact that my club is underground, figuratively speaking, doesn't scare you off?"

"Not a bit." Leighton paused for a moment. "I do want to know how you keep from getting raided by the cops, but I'm not afraid of it."

Saporta sipped his drink and looked at her in silence for a small eternity. Leighton didn't let it faze her, just waited and occasionally sipped at her martini.

"I'll think about it," he finally said. "You do realize I'm going to have to look into your finances."

"Of course." Leighton smiled. "One useful thing I learned from my ex is how to keep careful track of financial matters. Everything's in order. Make me a list of what you need from me and I'll make sure it gets to you."

Saporta had her put her email address into his phone and promised to let her know. "In the meantime," he said, standing and offering her an unnecessary hand up, "come enjoy the club. I'll spot you a handful of chips, see what you can do with them."

Leighton followed him back into the noise and bustle of the club, and across the room to the cashier where he did, in fact, give her a handful of chips.

"Gamble, have a drink, dance." He spread his arms out, showing off like the tycoon he appeared to be. "I'll email you next week." He headed toward the bar, clearly finished playing host to her.

Leighton did a quick scan of the room and didn't see Victoria anywhere. She could have been somewhere on the dance floor, but Leighton had a pretty good view of the room from where she was, and she knew how Victoria moved.

*

Victoria answered her phone, which was showing a number she didn't recognize, with a cautious, "Hello?"

"Vicky-T," Saporta said, his voice warm, "you ditched me last night."

Victoria didn't even pretend to be conciliatory. "The way I remember it is that you ditched me." She rummaged through her fridge, not really looking for anything, but keeping her hands busy and her attention divided so he would have to work for it.

"That was business. If I'd known you were going to be there, I wouldn't have invited her. Besides," Saporta added, "I heard you found someone to entertain you while I was gone."

"I am not," she informed him, "the kind of girl who waits around." Victoria closed the refrigerator, hard enough that the sound of it should have carried to him.

"I'm worth waiting around for."

Saporta's ego trip was almost charming just in its excess.

"Let me buy you dinner tonight. No business, I promise."

Victoria hesitated. She had to make him come to her. "It's Saturday. Don't you have to be at your club or whatever?"

"They'll survive without me for one night, even on a Saturday. Come on, Vicky-T, don't let me down."

Victoria sighed heavily. "Fine. One dinner."

"One dinner to start with," he said. "I'll pick you up at seven. Wear something nice." The click of the phone told Victoria he'd hung up, and she ground her teeth together. Was that kind of macho presumption still something people did? And did it actually work?

She shuddered. It was only working on her because it had to, because it was her fucking job for it to work on her.

The tulips were still staring at her from the living room. Victoria resolutely turned her back on them and spent some time trying to decide what Saporta would consider "something nice" before settling on a relatively demure black dress and a pair of yellow heels to set it off. It wouldn't do for the party girl to be too tame.

That still left most of her afternoon free, and she amused herself by eavesdropping on conversations at the closest Starbucks while pretending to read a magazine whose pages she never turned.

Victoria was actually reading the same magazine, perched on the edge of her couch to avoid wrinkling anything too badly, when the intercom buzzed and she told Saporta she'd be right down. She checked herself one last time in the mirror in the entryway - lipstick still perfect, half-smile firmly on - before she left the apartment.

"Victoria," Saporta greeted her when she opened the door to the building. He'd been leaning against a very expensive car, but pushed off it and came across the sidewalk to kiss the back of her hand like he was in some sort of costume drama. The appreciation in his eyes, however, was all twenty-first century lust. "You look lovely."

"Thank you. You clean up respectably." He'd switched out his jeans and flannel for a suit that fit him perfectly. In truth, it went beyond respectable and well into the realm of damn fine, but she wasn't going to make anything too easy for him.

*

Saturday evening, and Leighton was poring through financial records. She'd gone over the basics of her cover's finances as part of her prep for the job, but she'd decided they were worth another look. She could reasonably claim to need to refer back to her records if Saporta asked something she didn't know, but she'd also told him she was at least somewhat financially savvy, and it couldn't hurt to be as familiar as possible with the inner workings of Elle Masters' financial life.

The problem with that approach was that Elle Masters' financial life, while extensive, was incredibly boring. While Leighton was used to the slogging through details that often made up police work, she was usually keeping an eye out for something that didn't fit, or that would best be explained by a crime. Elle Masters had none of that. Her profile was simply an even mosaic of the financial interests held by the wealthy.

Leighton gave up after a while. She had enough of it memorized that she would hold up to Saporta's scrutiny, and the paperwork was available for the rest of it if he asked.

She changed her clothes and hailed a cab to one of the other clubs on her list of places Saporta and his associates frequented. Even if she'd gotten a direct line to Saporta through Dueñas, it couldn't hurt to forge some other ties to him and his world. Dueñas didn't really know her, even if she was enough to get Leighton an introduction, and other contacts would give her a little more pull with Saporta.

The club had some sort of children's television theme going. It was enough to make Leighton pause in the doorway, wondering if she'd somehow gotten the wrong place. Gambling and - she glanced around - SpongeBob didn't really seem to be in the same league. But then she remembered Saporta's apparent fondness for hideous clothing and decided that it might not be that incongruous after all.

She'd barely gotten her drink when an extremely tall man, his hair parted in such a way that it did nothing to conceal a hairline that was beginning to recede, came to stand next to her. Last time Leighton had seen his face, it was in a surveillance photo - he didn't have a record - with "Ryland Blackinton" labeled across the bottom.

"I couldn't help but notice you," he said in a British accent so smarmy Leighton almost laughed at him then and there. "You seem to be all alone. Perhaps you would like to join me for a drink."

Leighton did laugh then, but just a chuckle. "Does that ever work?"

"More often than you might think," he said, still with a wide smile but dropping the accent. "And if not, I still have friends to talk to." He gestured back at a table for four with only two occupied chairs. Leighton recognized their occupants from their surveillance photos as well: Alex Suarez and Lauren Strenge.

*

The place Saporta took her - or, more specifically, the place he had his driver take them - was far, far out of her price range, either as Victoria Teague or Victoria Asher. Victoria refused to be impressed. She merely followed the maitre d' to their table as if this were the thing she did every day and ignored every less than complimentary glance at the color of her shoes.

"What do you think?" Saporta asked after they'd been seated.

Victoria looked at him over the top of her menu, then glanced around the restaurant. She'd already taken in the exits and the other diners, but he hadn't seen her do that; this look was for show.

"I haven't tried the food yet." Victoria looked back down at her menu, but could see the twist of Saporta's mouth in her peripheral vision.

"I promise you it's excellent."

"You drink Red Bull and vodka."

"Don't knock it till you try it."

Victoria ignored that and kept reading through the menu. It certainly sounded excellent. When she'd made her choice, she set her menu down next to her plate.

A waiter, who'd apparently only been waiting for that signal, appeared as if by magic to take their orders. Saporta ordered one of the ridiculously decadent appetizers for them to share and a bottle of wine, but wasn't quite so presumptuous as to order Victoria's meal for her.

"Independent film," Saporta said, when the waiter left as unobtrusively as he'd arrived. "Is that how you met Adrian?"

Victoria shrugged with one shoulder. "More or less. I was in film school and we had friends who knew each other. You know how it is." That story had the advantage of being absolutely true.

"Film school," Saporta repeated. "So why New York? Isn't Hollywood the place to be?"

Victoria didn't have to feign her annoyance. "Not for independent film. Hollywood is all big budgets and big business. Doesn't matter how good you are, just who you know and what kind of numbers you can bring in."

Saporta chuckled. "Sounds like running a club, except how good you are is what brings in the numbers."

The waiter came back with their wine and let Saporta taste it for his approval before pouring glasses for each of them.

"I would never have known about your club if I didn't know someone who knew about it." Victoria sipped her wine. It was excellent.

"Not even the same thing." Saporta's eyes were bright with challenge. "The fact that you have to know someone who knows about it is part of what makes my club so good. I wouldn't get half the people if we were aboveground."

"So you're saying your club doesn't stand on its merits alone. It's all business."

Saporta chuckled. "Okay, maybe I'm more like Hollywood than independent film, at least when it comes to business." He reached across the table and took her hand. "Personally, it's all about how good I am."

*

Leighton sipped her drink and pretended to consider Blackinton's offer. "You get," she pulled out her cell phone, "twenty minutes to convince me that sitting with the three of you is better than drinking alone." She set a timer and dropped her cell phone back into her purse.

"We'll have you convinced in ten." Blackinton let Leighton precede him to the table, where he gestured at Suarez and Strenge. "My compatriots are the nerdy Alex and the lovely Lauren. I myself am the extremely handsome Ryland. And you are?"

Leighton thought for a second, then introduced herself as, "The incomparable Elle."

Leighton took the empty chair across from Suarez, leaving Blackinton to sit between them. Narcotics' files had said that Suarez and Blackinton had run some small-time gambling interests - floating craps and poker, mostly - on their own before Saporta had absorbed them into his enterprises. While they were both sharp, all their available information said Suarez was the one to watch out for. He was more serious, and he had a culinary degree, which meant he was proficient with any manner of sharp objects.

"Our task," Blackinton said to his companions, "is to convince Elle that drinking with us is better than drinking alone."

"Anything's better than drinking alone," Suarez said.

"No one to interrupt your thoughts," Leighton said.

"No one to engage in witty repartee," Blackinton countered.

"Unless you like talking to yourself," Strenge said.

The three of them had a good rhythm going, and they managed to absorb Leighton into it nearly effortlessly.

"Let me ask you a question." Leighton put her glass down. "Why come to a bar that looks like Nickelodeon's merchandising department threw up all over its walls?"

Suarez said, "Now you've done it," and Strenge laughed.

"SpongeBob," Blackinton intoned, holding up a finger to draw her attention, "is one of the true heroes of our age. A man with only one pair of square pants. A man who lives in a pineapple under the sea. A man who works, day in and day out, for a crab. This man still manages to be an inspiration to millions."

It was hard to tell if he was serious. It could all be a put-on designed to entertain, but Leighton had met criminals - and even law-abiding citizens - with equally strange preoccupations.

"Besides," Blackinton said, dropping back into the casual manner that was probably his usual speaking style, "you're here."

"Ah," Leighton said, "but I didn't know what I was getting into when I came in here."

"Then why come in at all?" Even though it was Strenge who'd asked, Suarez was intently focused on Leighton.

Leighton shrugged. "Heard the name somewhere, and wanted to try something new. That's been my goal since my divorce."

There was a moment of silence while the rest of the table digested that. Suarez was still watching her intently, but Strenge looked sympathetic and Blackinton apologetic.

*

Victoria would give Saporta this: he had excellent taste. If she thought they could ever afford it, she would insist on bringing Leighton here. The food was incredible, everything cooked and spiced to bring out the best of its flavor, and the wine and appetizer Saporta had chosen went well with her dinner.

He also turned up the charm as the meal progressed, and it lost the obnoxious edge most of his come-ons had held. That made keeping a conversation going a lot easier, and Victoria was able to ask him, "How did you become an underground club owner?" without seeming like it was coming out of nowhere.

Saporta chuckled. "It's probably not all that different from how anyone becomes a club owner. I used to play in poker clubs." He waited for her nod before continuing. "And after a while, you know, I got to thinking, 'Hey, I could do this better.' Saved up, sold some real estate I'd been holding onto, and put the money into a club. Been doing it better ever since."

Everything but the reason he'd chosen to do it matched what his file said. "You make it sound so easy."

"At a certain point, starting a business stops being such a challenge."

Victoria put her fork down and sipped at her wine between bites. "Does that mean you have other businesses?"

"Of course." Saporta's mouth quirked into a smile. "Are you going to want to see my credit report too, or will an abbreviated profile be enough?"

"Oh, just the highlights," Victoria said breezily. "A girl can never be too careful."

"Highlights," Saporta repeated. "The club. The deli, of course. Another restaurant across town. Couple of houses in Jersey." He leaned in. "All of them solvent, everything in the black. I am not whatever kind of deadbeat you're trying to figure out if I might be."

No, but he was some other kind of deadbeat. Victoria said, "A girl can never be too careful," again, and added, "I don't know what to expect of a guy who runs an illegal club."

"Some men," Saporta said, "wouldn't know what to expect of a girl who frequents illegal clubs." He reached across the table to pick up her hand and press a kiss to the back of it. "I know that it only shows a willingness to take risks and the kind of spirit that refuses to let arbitrary rules keep her from enjoying herself."

Victoria shivered under the intensity of Saporta's gaze. She'd maybe had too much wine; she was starting to find his overbearing attention flattering.

She reached for her water glass instead of the wine and used the excuse of sipping it to look away from him.

"I do like to enjoy myself." She put her glass down and gently pulled her hand away from his so she could use both hands to unnecessarily cut a piece of potato into two smaller pieces. "The food is excellent, by the way."

Saporta grinned at her. "Now that you trust my taste, I'll have you drinking Red Bull and vodka in no time."

*

"Oh, shit," Blackinton said, interrupting Suarez's discourse on the relative merits of French cooking and vegetarianism. "How long has it been? We're supposed to be convincing Elle we're better than drinking alone."

Leighton checked her phone. "Seventeen minutes." She smiled at him. "I'm already entertained enough not to walk away at twenty, so I think that means you've done it. Congratulations." She turned off the timer and glanced down at her glass. "Tell you what, next round's on me."

Blackinton went with her to the bar to grab four more drinks. When they got back, Suarez and Strenge were holding hands, but they let them drop casually.

"You're a chef?" Leighton asked Suarez.

"Used to be." Suarez twisted his glass on the table. "Now I just cook for fun."

"And because you're a giant food snob," Strenge added.

Suarez smiled at her, and Leighton could see that it was genuinely affectionate, the kind of smile Victoria might give Leighton for teasing about her fondness for skirts and dresses over pants.

"And because I'm a giant food snob."

"What do you do instead?"

Suarez and Blackinton exchanged a quick look that Leighton wouldn't have seen if she hadn't been watching for exactly that kind of thing.

Blackinton took over answering. "Alex and I used to have our own thing going, but now we work for a guy who's basically a one-man empire. A club, some restaurants, that kind of thing. We take care of various business things."

"Really? I'm looking to invest in a club."

Suarez and Blackinton exchanged another quick look. Leighton sipped her drink and pretended not to watch them.

"Not sure the boss is looking to take on investors right now," Suarez said. "But clubs are a dime a dozen in the city. I'm sure you'll find one."

"I'm sure," Leighton agreed. "And what do you do?" she asked Strenge.

"Jewelry design." Strenge tucked her hair back and tilted her head toward Leighton. "These are some of mine."

Leighton reached out and let the weight of the earring rest against her finger, examining it. Platinum and diamonds. Strenge was doing well for herself if that was the sort of thing she was selling. Leighton couldn't remember seeing anything about it in the files. She'd have to tell Michael; maybe there was something they could catch there too.

"Very nice," she said.

"Thank you." Strenge reached into her purse and handed over a business card. There was a tasteful image of jewels against a light purple background and instructions to call for an appointment. "In case you're ever interested."

"Thank you." Leighton slipped the card into her own purse. That would make things much easier for Michael. "Next time I need something new, I'll know where to go."

*

"Are you sure I can't convince you to come dancing at the club?"

Victoria shook her head. "You said no business, and if we go to the club, you'll end up doing some anyway."

"The curse of the business owner." Saporta held the door of the restaurant for her, then put his hand on the small of her back to lead her across the sidewalk to the car. "Dancing somewhere else then? I do frequent establishments other than my own." He held the car door too.

Victoria rested her hand over her stomach. "I'm so full. I don't think I can summon up the energy for dancing tonight. Maybe next time."

Saporta leaned forward to tell the driver to take them back to Victoria's building, then sat back and smirked at Victoria. "Does that mean there's going to be a next time?"

Victoria scooted a little bit closer to him, not all the way across the seat, just far enough that she could put her hand on his arm. "You're a very charming man, Gabe Saporta. I'm sure you can talk me into a next time." She didn't have to lie as much as she'd thought she would to say it. He was very charming.

"Oh, Vicky-T," he all but purred, "I'm going to talk you into all kinds of things."

Victoria outright laughed at that. It was so outrageous, such a line, but he sold it so well.

Saporta didn't take offense at her laughter. He seemed content to smile at her in response.

Victoria looked away from him, glancing out the window to watch the lights of the city pass them by. She was supposed to be getting close to Saporta, and she knew how to play hard to get, but this was trickier. Now she had to work the balance between letting him know she was interested and making him think she was a sure thing. He would give up if she didn't encourage him at all, but she would lose her interest if she made it too easy for him.

"I love this," Saporta said. He'd moved closer to her while she wasn't looking. "The way the whole city lights up at night."

"It's so different from L.A." Victoria dredged up her memories of how New York had looked when she'd first moved. "There it's all horizontal. You can go up in the hills and look down on this huge area that's all lit up. Here it's all vertical. The lights just go up around you."

Saporta was close enough that Victoria could feel the heat of his body along her side. "How would you film it?"

That one was easy; when she'd first moved to New York, that had been how Victoria had seen the world. "Keep the cameras low, so everything was at a slight up angle so you get that sense of being in the valley between the buildings." Victoria laughed a little and turned back toward Saporta, using the motion to put a little more space between them. "But you'd have to have matching flat-out shots of L.A. for the contrast."

"You seem like a determined woman," Saporta said. "I'd put money down that you could make it happen."

*

Suarez and Strenge left not much later, but Blackinton smiled wide and exaggerated and said, "I'll keep the incomparable Elle company."

"That's a tall order," Leighton said. "Now it's all on you to be entertaining."

Blackinton shrugged. "I'm a very tall man. And a very entertaining one." Leighton couldn't quite figure out what the accent on that was supposed to be. She was starting to get the sense that Blackinton was more than he appeared. The constant playacting was a good distraction; anything could be going on under it, and it would keep people underestimating him.

"Let me ask," she said. "You don't seem attached. Girlfriend? Boyfriend?"

"Not at the moment, but it's only a matter of time." Blackinton leaned back in his chair and didn't even bother trying to be subtle as his gaze roamed from the top of her head to the toes of her shoes. "I don't suppose you're in the market."

Leighton didn't even have to fake her laughter. Forget the fact that men just weren't her thing. She would never go for someone with as little ability to be direct as Blackinton seemed to have. Even in the early days of their first subtle flirtation, Victoria had never hidden who she was or that she was interested in Leighton.

"No, sorry," she said, still laughing. "You go through a divorce like mine, and the last thing you even want to think about is a relationship." She smiled to soften it. "I could always use a drinking buddy."

Blackinton raised his glass and knocked it against hers. "Done." He drank, and then asked, "How do you feel about dancing and gambling?"

"Sounds like a good time to me."

Blackinton grinned. "Then let's get out of here. The boss is out tonight and Alex and Lauren were going home, so I should drop in to check on the club. Care to join me?"

Leighton finished off her drink in one large swallow. "Lead the way."

Blackinton held out his arm to her, pretending to stoop to get it low enough. Leighton laughed and linked her arm through his. They had to walk around the corner to a busier cross street to hail a cab, and Blackinton kept their arms linked until he had to step away to open the cab door for her. He gave the address to the driver as he got into the car. Leighton managed to start as if she'd actually been surprised by it.

"You work for Gabe Saporta? I was just in there yesterday talking to him about investing."

Blackinton looked at her sharply, and then smoothed it out into the wide grin from earlier. "Then perhaps we were just destined to met. Must be kismet."

Leighton laughed lightly. "Must be."

*

Victoria's temporary home was on a quiet street where the driver could pull up right in front of her building without being in the way. Victoria glanced out the window at the building, automatically taking note of her window, still dark, and the man halfway down the block bending over to clean up after his dog. She missed Gizmo with a sudden sharp pang. He'd been with her even longer than Leighton.

Victoria turned back to Saporta. "This is me."

"That it is." Saporta opened his door. "I'll walk you in."

Victoria didn't wait for him to open her door, but he came around the car and closed it behind her. Saporta put his hand on the small of her back and guided her up the steps to the door.

Victoria dug her keys out of her purse, then turned toward Saporta, smiling softly up at him. "Thank you, for dinner. It was an adequate apology."

"I should hope so." He trailed the back of one finger down her cheek. "Are you going to invite me up?"

Victoria kept her tone light as she said, "Not on the first date."

Saporta stepped closer, into her space, and his other hand settled on her hip. "I've bought you drinks twice. Surely we're into third date territory here."

Victoria shook her head. "Those don't count. This was definitely the first date. And I'm not that kind of girl."

Saporta tipped her chin up with the hand still on her face and bent down to kiss her, slowly enough that she could have stepped away if she wanted to. If it had been just about her, she would have, but she was playing a role here and she needed to make him believe she was interested.

Victoria wasn't surprised that Saporta was good at kissing, but she was surprised by how light he kept it. He just brushed his lips against hers, one hand still on her hip, the other tucked under her chin, his skin warm against hers in the cooling night.

He pulled away, and she followed him without consciously thinking about it, acting only on her instinct about what to do when someone kissed her like that.

Saporta tapped a finger against her lips. "You're not that kind of girl." His smile was both pleased and tinged with triumph. "When should we go on a second date?"

Victoria regained her balance enough to ask, "What makes you think you're getting a second date?"

"That was not the kiss of a woman planning never to see me again." Saporta squeezed her hip. "Tuesday?"

"I have things to do other than spend time with you." Victoria took a step back. "I'll let you know."

Saporta laughed. "All right, Vicky-T, you win this one. Call me."

Victoria turned away from him and unlocked the door to the building. Saporta was still standing there when she turned to close it behind her. He waved at her before turning back to the car.

Victoria didn't let herself relax until she was in the elevator and the doors had closed behind her. It was just that she missed Leighton. That was the only reason she'd responded to his kiss the way she had.

*

Over the next week, Leighton met with two financial advisors, a club promoter looking to open a new place, the women from the spa, and Michael. She was extra careful, especially when she met with Michael; she spotted tails at least twice, which meant Saporta was checking up on her. That was, on the whole, good. Her cover was solid, and if he was going to the effort of having her followed - and doing God only knew what other kind of investigation - he was considering taking her on as an investor.

On Thursday she went back to the bar where she'd met Blackinton and Suarez. There wasn't anyone she knew there, but she got a drink anyway and sat at the bar making notes on her phone.

Half an hour later, Blackinton slid onto the stool next to her and said, "Fancy meeting you here."

"I think all the yellow kind of grew on me." Leighton smiled at him. "Besides, I was hoping to run into you."

Blackinton arched an eyebrow, then leaned away from her to gesture at the bartender. "You could have come to the club."

"I could have," Leighton agreed, "but this place is much better for conversation."

"Then by all means, let us converse." Blackinton had no sooner said it than the bartender arrived to take his order, interrupting their conversation.

Leighton waited until he had his drink before trying to say anything of substance. Then she asked, "How serious is your boss about the possibility of taking me on as an investor?"

If Blackinton was surprised by the question, he didn't show it. "What makes you ask?"

"He said he was going to get in touch this week, but he hasn't." Leighton leaned forward into the space between them. "This is something I'm going to do, and if he's not interested, there are other people I've been talking to." She sat back and smiled at him. "I just like his club best."

Blackinton chuckled. "It has that effect on people." He drank down half his drink in one swallow. "What's the rush?"

"Quite frankly," Leighton told him, "I'm bored. I don't have to attend events or keep house for a husband, and there are only so many days I can go to the spa. I'm ready for an adventure."

"You could always open your own club."

Leighton smiled, watching to make sure she had all of his attention. "I'd like to, but I want a little experience under my belt first."

"That seems wise." Blackinton sipped his drink and looked past her at the TV in the corner showing something that no doubt featured one of the cartoon characters festooning the walls. Leighton waited, and he looked at her again after a moment. "I can't make any promises, of course, but I'll put in a good word with the boss."

*

Victoria got a copy of _The Woman Director_ , delivered by courier, from Saporta on Monday, had lunch with him on Tuesday, and let him hold her hand at the movies on Thursday. On Friday, she decided it was time to spend some time on his turf again and showed up at his club.

"No charge," Novarro said when she tried to pay the cover. "Boss said you should come and go as you please."

"Really?" Victoria let her surprise show. She was definitely making an impression on Saporta if he was willing to let her in for free. Of course, it could have simply been a business decision. He could have been hoping that she would come by more often and bring her friends. "Thanks." She smiled at Novarro, quick and bright. "I guess we'll be seeing more of each other."

Novarro smiled back, still as sweet as he'd been the first time she'd come to the club. "I hope so."

Victoria headed for the back of the store and slipped down the staircase and into the club. She was prepared, now, for the sharp contrast between the silent stairway and the noise of the club.

A quick glance around the room didn't reveal Saporta anywhere, so she worked her way through the crowd - it was a busy night, with more people than she'd seen there before - to the bar.

The bartender was someone different from the other times she'd been there, but he ignored a man at the other end to take her order and said, "On the house, boss's orders," when he served it to her.

She was farther in than she'd thought if even employees she hadn't met knew who she was.

"Where is the boss?" she asked. "I haven't seen him yet."

"Poker room, I think."

Victoria nodded. "Pour him a drink? I'll take it to him."

The bartender smiled like that was the right answer and dashed Red Bull and vodka into a glass.

Going into the poker room was a little like what leaving the club with other people must have been like; the heavy beat of the music gave way to a silence broken only by people's voices and the sound of chips clacking together.

Saporta was at a table at the center of the room - of course - with his back to the door. Victoria hung back and sipped at her drink until the hand was over. Then she walked across the room and leaned over Saporta to place his drink on the table in front of him.

He turned as she straightened, then smiled up at her with the kind of lazy smile that wouldn't have been out of place in bed. "Why, Vicky-T, I didn't know you cared."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "Maybe I just want to liquor you up so I can have my way with you."

Saporta's laugh was low, in a register that made her think of sex. "You can have your way with me anytime, liquor or not."

"I'll keep that in mind."

*

Blackinton paused in his enumeration of the many virtues of SpongeBob and pulled out a phone. He frowned down at it for a moment.

"Duty calls," he said to Leighton. "Boss has a guest, and it's busy enough that Alex thinks we should both be around keeping track of things."

"By all means," Leighton said, "don't let me keep you from your duty."

Blackinton still looked discomfited by the necessity. "I do hate to leave you all alone, especially in the middle of a conversation about SpongeBob."

Leighton laughed. "I'm a grown-up. I think I'll be okay."

"Oh," Blackinton said mournfully, "but I don't think I will." He brightened a bit. "Want to come to the club? I won't be very good company, but I'm sure you can have fun without me."

Leighton glanced around the bar and tossed back the end of her drink. "I did say I wanted excitement, and this isn't quite it."

Blackinton grinned at her and took advantage of the cab ride to continue on with his lecture on SpongeBob, albeit without the same collection of visual aids.

"Nate will tell you," he said as they went into the deli. "Nate, tell Elle that SpongeBob is the epitome of animated children's television."

"No question," Novarro agreed readily over the heads of a couple of clubgoers paying the cover.

Blackinton shot finger guns at him. "And that is why you are my main man." He held the door to the stairwell, and he and Leighton waited for the clubgoers to precede them down the stairs. "You're totally convinced, right?"

Leighton laughed. "Maybe," she threw over her shoulder as they went into the dense, noisy atmosphere of the club.

"You'll see the light," Blackinton predicted. Leighton wasn't sure exactly what "keeping track of things" meant, but Blackinton took her to the bar and leaned across it to chat with the bartender. Leighton was too far back and the club was too loud for her to hear their whole conversation, but it resulted in Blackinton handing her a drink and telling her, "Boss is in the poker room if you want to say hi. I need to make the rounds. Have a good time."

Leighton raised her drink to him. "Sure."

Blackinton flashed her a grin as he walked away, and Leighton watched him head toward the cashier. She probably couldn't quite get away with tracking his every move, so she turned to take in the rest of the club as she sipped her drink.

She hadn't been dancing in, well, in a very long time, but what she liked most about dancing was having Victoria pressed close and moving with her. She gulped a little more of her drink than was strictly necessary. She could imagine that, her and Victoria moving to this beat, Victoria's thigh sliding between hers and Victoria's hands on her hips.

That wasn't why she was here. Leighton turned again to survey the good-sized crowd around the tables, using the movement to shake her out of the thought. Perhaps she'd be better off checking out the poker room.

*

Saporta turned back to the table and said, "I'm afraid I'm out. There are better distractions at the moment."

"I don't want to interrupt your game," Victoria said. Like any other cop, she'd played numerous games of poker, and she knew there were things you could learn about a person by how they played.

"Poker is a mental game," Saporta said, "and you," he pointed at her, "are a distraction."

Victoria held up her hands, drink in one, the other palm out. "I'll be quiet as a church mouse."

Saporta laughed. "That's hardly the issue." His eyes ran over her, no doubt taking in the way the dress she was wearing showed off all of her assets and the way her heels stretched the line of her legs.

Victoria put her hand on his shoulder, leaning closer to give him a different angle to look at. "I'll stay out of your way."

"But you won't stay out of my mind." Despite saying it, Saporta turned back to the table. "One more hand."

From where she was standing, Victoria could see Saporta's cards as well as those of the man next to him. Leighton had never managed to teach her to count cards, but she could make some educated guesses about what else was going on at the table, and she used her experience in undercover work to keep her face as impassive as possible.

Saporta kept up a steady stream of patter and conversation. Victoria knew him well enough by now to guess that it was a cover that would keep the rest of the table from noticing both whatever his actual tells were and his attention to theirs. He played well, even beyond that, taking risks that would pay off if he won but not devastate him - not even in terms of the chips he had on the table - if he lost.

Victoria wasn't sure if she was rooting for him to win or lose. Before she could make up her mind, the last three players at the table had all called, and Saporta's two pair lost to another player's three fives.

"You're making me look bad in front of the girl I'm trying to impress," Saporta said, but there was a hint of laughter in his voice. "I'm definitely out now." He gathered up the chips still in front of him, picked up his drink with his other hand, and turned to Victoria. "I told you you'd be a distraction, just by being you."

"I can always leave," Victoria said. She glanced around the room. "This part isn't really my scene anyway."

Saporta leaned in and kissed her cheek. "I'm glad to see you. You're not going anywhere; we're just going to move this party to somewhere the distraction won't matter."

*

The poker room had the same soundproofing as Saporta's office and the outside of the club, so Leighton stepped in and quickly closed the door behind her before she looked around the room. There were people at every one of the tables in the room, and most of them were full. Leighton cataloged that automatically, but her interest was actually held by a pair who were standing in the center of the room.

Saporta was kissing Victoria's cheek, and Victoria was tipping her face up to make it easy for him. Victoria was facing away from the door and Saporta hadn't noticed her yet, so Leighton let herself look, for just a moment, at the way Victoria's dress stretched smoothly over her ass and left her legs bare to mid-thigh. It hadn't been that long, really, but she missed Victoria. At the moment, she missed sex with Victoria. If it had been just them, no case, they'd have been out on the dance floor until they couldn't keep their hands off each other anymore, and then they would have gone home and stayed in bed until late the next morning.

Leighton blinked to clear the image out of her head, and took a longer look around the room. She wasn't here to think about Victoria. She was here to play Elle Masters, potential club investor.

"Elle." Saporta nodded at her. "I didn't expect to see you this evening."

Leighton nodded back. "I ran into Ryland across town and came to see what the club was like tonight."

Victoria turned as Leighton spoke and took a half a step back, so she was almost leaning against Saporta. The part of Leighton that was a New York City Police Department detective admired how casually she'd pulled off what had to be a calculated move staking her claim. The part of her that was Victoria's lover felt the sting of Victoria choosing someone else.

"Busy, as you can see," Saporta said, gesturing at the tables.

"Busier out there," Leighton said. "Definitely a successful business."

Saporta chuckled. "Very much so." He wrapped his arm around Victoria's waist, as if it belonged there. "But tonight's not a night for talking business. I'm not blowing you off. I'm still checking some things out, and then we'll talk."

"Right," Leighton said, making sure to keep her voice amused and not venomous. "Partying with the clientele."

Saporta rested his chin on Victoria's shoulder, staking as much of a claim on her as she'd staked on him. "Victoria's not just clientele, but we are partying."

Leighton waved them off. "Then I'll let you get to it."

Saporta nodded, and kept his arm around Victoria's waist as they detoured around Leighton toward the door. Leighton didn't turn to watch them.

*

Saporta let go of Victoria when they were in the hallway and handed her his drink. He pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door marked Private on the other side of the hallway.

"Come on in," he said, so she followed him into what turned out to be his office. "Let me just put these away," he said, holding up his poker chips. He went around the desk, and Victoria looked at the photos on the wall without turning her back entirely to him.

He unlocked a drawer in the desk with another key. Victoria was at the wrong angle to see what else was in the drawer.

"Keeping your own stash?" she asked, turning away from the walls. There wasn't anything in the photos that was particularly relevant to her, and Leighton had presumably spent enough time in the office to report on it.

Saporta chuckled and relocked the drawer. "I play enough that it just makes sense to keep my chips here instead of having to trade in all the time." He came back around the desk and took his drink from her. He wrapped the other arm low around her waist. "Of course, bringing you in here makes the whole club owner thing a lot less glamorous."

Victoria glanced around the office again. "Club owner has to have an office." She grinned. "And the desk is very sexy." She wasn't lying about that, even if the fantasy she was entertaining about it involved spreading Leighton out over it, pushing up the sexy-conservative skirt she'd been wearing in the poker room, and eating her out.

Saporta turned them around and walked her back until she reached the desk. "Sexy, huh?"

Victoria leaned against the desk, smiling at him. "Very." She ran her free hand across the wood.

Saporta was just leaning down to kiss her when there was a knock at the door. The knock was followed by the door opening and a man Victoria recognized from his surveillance photos as Ryland Blackinton poking his head around it.

"This better be good," Saporta said.

"Sorry, boss. We got a situation."

Saporta made a face that was no less disgruntled for Victoria only being able to see it in profile. He'd shifted to apologetic by the time he turned all the way back to her. "I need to take care of this." He brushed a kiss against her cheek. "Apparently my work is never done."

Victoria pushed him back and tugged the hem of her skirt down. "Don't keep me waiting too long."

"Wouldn't dream of it." Saporta caressed the line of her waist before letting her past him to leave the room.

There were probably any number of reasons Blackinton would need to speak to him privately, and only some of them would be relevant to her investigation. It would have been better if she could have stayed in the room, but Saporta didn't trust her that much yet. At least she'd given him a pleasant association to go with having her in his office that was likely to get her in it again.

She'd had barely any of her drink, which made it a good time to abandon it on a table and melt into the edges of the crowd on the dance floor. She could hold her liquor, but drinking too much was not going to help her on the job. This way she could accept without worry when Saporta got her another drink - assuming he and Blackinton were done before she decided not to let him keep her waiting any longer.

*

Leighton took an empty chair at one of the poker tables, trying to put the vision of Victoria leaning back against Saporta out of her head. Saporta was sure to have people in the poker room who would report back to him, and it was time to put her poker skills to good use. Saporta needed to know she was smart, willing to take risks, and good at reading people. She wouldn't be able to convince anyone of that at a poker table if she were thinking about how much she wanted to go pry Saporta's hands off of Victoria and replace them with her own.

She smiled at the other players and anted in. A man across the table raised an eyebrow at her.

"You sure you're in the right part of the club, sweetheart? Party girls usually stick with roulette."

Leighton accepted her cards and glanced at them briefly. "Put your cards where your mouth is, and we'll see who really belongs here."

She raised when the bet came to her. The guy across the table checked.

"You know, this is usually the owner's table. Only reason there's a seat free is that he's got some girl he's fucking instead."

Leighton was tempted to find out anything she could about the guy; anyone who was that much of an asshole had to be doing something she could get him arrested for. But he wasn't her priority, and unless she could tie him to Saporta's activities, she would probably have to let him go in favor of bigger fish. It was a pity. Taking the guy off the street would be a service to any woman who might have to encounter him.

"You talk a good game," one of the other players said, "but your cards are for shit."

They traded in cards and there was another round of betting - accompanied by three remarks from the asshole that Leighton didn't bother responding to - and Leighton lost the hand, her three tens not enough to best the four twos held by the man to her right. The asshole turned over a pair of kings and scowled his way through the next hand. It was a distinct improvement over the commentary of the previous hand, and he left after losing again.

"He's an ass," the man on Leighton's left said as he dealt the next hand. "Only reason he's still allowed in here is that he's on good behavior when Gabe's at the table."

"That and he loses spectacular amounts of money," another one of the men said. Then he grinned at her across the table. "I'd say you proved who belongs at the table."

Leighton smiled back and raised. "That was all I wanted to do."

*

Victoria felt the press of another body against her back before she heard Butcher's voice saying, "I knew coming here tonight was a good idea."

Victoria couldn't help her smile, and she turned around to let him see it, and to let anyone watching her see her give it to him. It would be good for Saporta to think he had some competition.

Victoria leaned close. "Butcher, right?"

"Right. And you're Victoria." Butcher's hands settled onto her hips. "I'm glad I ran into you."

"Oh yeah?" Victoria let the music guide her movements, and Butcher matched her easily.

"Sure. You're the prettiest girl I've danced with in a good long while." He said it with such completely effortless charm that Victoria thought that either it was true or he was such a good actor that he should be the one doing the deep cover work. Either way, it made it easier for her to move closer to him and loop her arms around his neck.

The fact that he was a pro and did know what she was here for meant that he knew enough to keep moving them around so they could both keep a sharp eye on the room. Victoria was pretty sure she managed to spot at two people in the crowd whose attention was focused enough that they were probably informants of some kind for Saporta, and she and Butcher were definitely within the line of sight of the DJ. Occasional shifts of the crowd put them clearly within view of the bartender.

It was too loud for Victoria to say anything to Butcher when Saporta made his way effortlessly toward them through the crowd, but she pressed her fingers against the back of his neck in warning. He nodded briefly, which she took as a sign that he knew something was coming.

Saporta tapped Butcher on the shoulder and said, "Mind if I cut in?" when Butcher half turned toward him. Saporta had a slight smile on his face, but it didn't come anywhere close to reaching his eyes, and it was more menacing than any scowl could have been.

Butcher glanced from Saporta to Victoria as if trying to make up his mind, and then he squeezed Victoria's hip again. "Nice seeing you again Victoria."

Victoria shrugged at him and put her arms around Saporta's neck as he took Butcher's place. "You didn't have to scare him away," she told Saporta. "He was just being nice."

Saporta pressed a kiss to her jaw, just below her ear. "We had unfinished business."

"It wouldn't have been if you hadn't pushed me away."

"I didn't want to." Saporta pulled her close, close enough that they were pressed together from chest to hip. "I have no intention of spending the rest of my evening with anyone but you."

Victoria couldn't quite figure out how he managed to drop lines like that without sounding like a complete sleazeball.

*

Leighton decided after half an hour that she'd made her point and left the poker room two hundred dollars richer. Too bad it would all go back into the PD's funds for the case. She could imagine plenty of things she and Victoria could do with the extra cash.

That thought was still uppermost in Leighton's mind as she went back into the main part of the club and headed for the bar. A drink in a bar was excellent camouflage. She didn't mean to, but she automatically looked for Victoria. She didn't see her until she had a drink in her hand and was turning away from the bar.

Leighton could feel her fingers tightening painfully around her glass.

Victoria and Saporta were pressed close together, her arms around his neck, his around her waist, and she had her eyes closed in a dreamy smile while his lips skated across her neck. Leighton knew that smile, and she knew the way Victoria's skin felt under her lips.

The worst goddamned part about undercover work was watching Victoria play to other people. It was ten times worse this time, knowing that at the end of the night she'd be going home alone to an empty apartment instead of with Victoria to their place.

Leighton didn't let her gaze rest on them for too long; as a potential business partner, some interest in Saporta was natural, but anything more would stand out. She had no doubt the club was full of people whose job it was to report back to Saporta.

Leighton turned just in time to see Butcher coming toward her, a beer in one hand and a smile on his face.

"I was dancing," he said when he reached her, "and I got interrupted. I don't suppose you dance."

Leighton looked him over coolly, taking in what Elle Masters would see in him: midrange jacket, more expensive jeans, basic v-neck under the jacket, too put together to be truly dangerous but with tattoos that gave him an edge.

"I've been known to," she allowed, "but I'm not in the market for anything other than dancing."

Butcher gave her as thorough a once-over as she'd given him, and she wondered what she looked like to him. Was he seeing Elle Masters, risk-taking wealthy divorcee, or was he seeing Leighton Meester, competent detective?

"I think I can live with that." Butcher took her glass and put both it and her beer down on a table. "Let's dance." He took her hand without asking and pulled her toward the dance floor. Leighton went along, but at her own pace, forcing him to slow down to keep her with him.

*

Victoria opened her eyes - her training and instincts wouldn't let her keep them closed for long, not if she was on the job and dancing with someone she couldn't trust to keep watch for them - and glanced around the room.

Butcher and Leighton were dancing together, right where she could see them, which couldn't have been an accident. They looked good together, smiling at each other and clearly having fun.

That should have been her, making Leighton smile like that.

Something of the way her attention wandered must have bled through, because Saporta pulled her impossibly closer and kissed her jaw, her cheek, and finally her mouth. He was good at it, and Victoria gave herself up to it, letting go of Victoria Asher's desires. Victoria Teague shouldn't have been thinking about anything but Saporta and the way he made her feel.

Saporta was good enough to push without making it feel like too much; even though Victoria knew that was what he was doing as he deepened the kiss and slid one hand down to her ass, she was willing to go with it instead of wanting to push him away.

"We could take this back to my office," he said. He had to be speaking loudly for her to hear him over the music, but it was as intimate as a whisper.

"You shouldn't mix business with pleasure." Victoria gave him a coy smile. "We keep getting interrupted."

"If I hadn't mixed pleasure with business I wouldn't have met you." Saporta's hand moved lower, grasping her thigh.

Victoria made herself laugh. "That only shows it's good for beginnings."

"Who says it can't be good for other things?" Saporta trailed his lips over her neck again. She'd always liked it when people did that, and she shivered involuntarily. They were pressed so close together that he had to feel it, even under the thudding of the bass and the way they were moving in the midst of a crowd.

"Who says I'm that kind of girl?" Victoria's voice came out breathier than she'd intended, and she could feel Saporta's smile against her neck.

"You liked my desk earlier."

Victoria laughed a little. "I like to keep my options open." She took a minute step backwards, putting the tiniest bit of space between them. Saporta followed her, but she kept moving to maintain the space. It took them farther away from Leighton and Butcher, not that they'd been close enough to be overheard.

"You do that and you might turn around to find that your options have disappeared."

Victoria tugged Saporta closer again and spoke directly into his ear. "There's always another option."

Saporta moved them in a quarter turn and jerked his chin toward Leighton and Butcher. "Looks like your other option moved on to another option of his own."

Victoria laughed low and intimate against his cheek. "I didn't say I only had one other option."

She wasn't surprised by the possessive kiss Saporta planted on her, but only her experience going undercover with other assholes kept her from kneeing him for the way his hands dug into her hips.

*

Leighton kept the smile on her face even as she sucked in a breath. Saporta wasn't just kissing Victoria. He was showing off, letting everyone in the place know she was his, and only three of them knew it wasn't true.

"What?" Butcher asked; he must have felt something of it in the way she held her body.

"Nothing," Leighton said. She didn't know who might be watching or listening to them, even in the middle of the club. She couldn't think about it anyway. Anger might make her even more determined to take Saporta down, but it would also make her sloppy, and she couldn't afford to be sloppy. This had to be a totally clean op. Everything had to stick.

Butcher casually turned them on the floor so he was facing Victoria and she wasn't. It went against all of Leighton's instincts to let someone who wasn't her, Mike, or Michael watch out for Victoria, but she understood why he did it. She was able to calm her breathing when she didn't have to watch it, or at least make it look more like her breath was because they were dancing.

Butcher leaned in close and asked, "Want to get out of here?"

Leighton shook her head. "I told you, just dancing." Then she smiled at him. "But I wouldn't say no to a drink."

Butcher waved her ahead of him. It wasn't really any quieter at the bar, but the setup was more conducive to conversation. Leighton found a small space to slip into, and Butcher followed, somehow making the space big enough for two.

"What brings you to the club?" he asked once they had drinks. Leighton was pretty sure she wasn't imagining the amused sparkle in his eyes.

"Hoping to invest in it." Leighton covered her own amusement by sipping her drink. It would have to be her last one for the evening.

"Dancing wasn't really all that you were in the market for."

"Tonight it was," Leighton said. "Recently divorced, not looking to get into anything more complicated than a business transaction."

Butcher managed a convincing look of disappointment. "I'm having no luck," he sighed. "Last woman I tried to dance with ended up with the club owner."

Leighton managed to stay cool. "He does seem like he'd be a charmer."

Butcher snorted. "A charmer, yeah. More like I have shitty luck."

Leighton raised her eyebrows at him. "And you thought coming to a gambling club was a good thing to do with that luck?"

Butcher grinned, sharp and wide. "Luck has to turn eventually. Besides, I met you." He moved closer, his fingers brushing over the back of her wrist.

"You don't even know my name," Leighton pointed out, "and I'm only interested in investing and the occasional dance."

"I'm Butcher," Butcher said. "I know nothing about investing, but I'm available anytime you want a dance partner."

Leighton thought for a split second and decided Elle would like that. "Elle," she said. "I'll keep that in mind."

*

Despite the unsubtle hints Saporta kept dropping, Victoria went back to her own place - alone - after the club closed. There was a distinct possibility she would have to sleep with him to keep the op going and her cover good, but she could put him off a little longer.

She scrubbed at her face a little harder than necessary when she took off her makeup. If this had been a smaller job she was working with Leighton, they would both be there, sharing the sink in their bathroom and reaching over to find the spots they'd missed. A lot of things were different when she was working smaller jobs with Leighton.

Saporta didn't call her on Saturday, which either meant he was busy or he was punishing her for going home alone on Friday. Victoria didn't call him either - she could wait him out, at least for another couple of days - and went to a different club that was known to be one of Saporta's favorites. She didn't see him there, but she spotted a man who'd been labeled one of his known associates in Narcotics' files, so maybe it would get back to him that she wasn't just sitting at home waiting for him to call.

Sunday was also quiet and without word from Saporta. Victoria went for a walk in the park, stopping occasionally to pet dogs whose owners seemed amenable to it. After a while she just shoved her hands in her coat pocket and stopped trying; it only made her miss Gizmo.

On Monday afternoon, she met Mike at one of the PD's apartments. If anyone asked, he was apartment sitting for a friend and found it easier to meet her there. In reality, they'd decided that public meets were too risky after a certain point. Victoria hadn't spotted a tail in the park on Sunday, but she didn't doubt that Saporta was tracking her somehow, and he would definitely want to listen in on any meetings she had with other men.

"This place is a piece of shit," Mike said after he'd wrenched the door back into the frame. "I don't think I want anyone thinking I have friends who live here."

Victoria waited until he turned around before she put her arms around him and hugged him tight.

"Christ, V. What the fuck?" Despite his words, Mike hugged her back.

Victoria let herself hold on for a few long moments before she stepped back and smiled at him. "Can't I just miss you?"

Mike snorted. "Yeah, right. What the fuck was that?" He searched her face, and she had to force herself not to look away. "You okay?"

Victoria blew out a breath and sat down on what was a distinctly rickety couch. "Yeah, yeah. I'm okay." She knew that her smile wasn't the brightest. "Just needed to touch someone other than Saporta, that's all."

*

There was something wrong. Leighton had been working with Michael for more than long enough to tell.

"Now you," she demanded after she'd reported in on what little she'd learned in the last week. "Spill."

Michael sighed and handed her a folded piece of paper. When she unfolded it, the first thing she saw, before she registered any of the words, was that the note was in Victoria's handwriting. Victoria's meetings with Mike were scheduled for earlier than Leighton's meetings with Michael, which meant she'd written the note the same day.

Leighton turned away from Michael; they were close, but this was between her and Victoria.  


> L-
> 
> Miss you.
> 
> Love you. Always.
> 
> -V

  
She'd known it, both of the things Victoria had said, but seeing the words in black and white made it more real, more immediate. It also eased over the ache of seeing Victoria with Saporta.

Leighton got her breathing under control again and turned back to Michael. "What else? You're too on edge just for this."

"Mike said Victoria said she was okay, but he doesn't think she is." Michael held his hands out, palm up, like he was trying to placate her. "I didn't want to tell you. You can't do anything about it."

"Like hell," Leighton muttered.

Michael put his hand on her arm. "You can't. I get it, okay? If that were Naomi." He shrugged, leaving the rest of it unsaid. "But you can't compromise the investigation and you can't do anything to blow her cover."

Leighton blew out a breath. "I know. I know. Fuck." She paced the office. There had to be a way to speed up this operation. "Saporta's still dragging his feet about taking me on as an investor. What we need is some competition."

"I'll take it to the Lieutenant," Michael said. "But I don't think you're going to get anything."

Leighton nodded sharply. "I'll see if I can scare up someone legitimate." She probably couldn't, but she needed to try something to get the case moving. She stopped pacing and sank down onto the luxurious couch, suddenly tired. She looked down at the note still grasped in her hand. She wanted this op over.

"I'm going to have to keep it." Michael sounded sorry to even bring it up.

"I know." Leighton half-smiled at him. "I'll want it back."

Michael nodded, then put a sheet of paper and a pen down on the coffee table in front of her. "I can give one to Mike to give to her if you want to write back."

Leighton set Victoria's note down next to the blank paper. She thought of the relief of seeing Victoria's words. She had to give that back to her.  


> My V-
> 
> Miss you too. Can't wait to touch you again.
> 
> Love you always.
> 
> -Your L

  
There was so much more that she wanted to say, but it had to be simple, just in case it got intercepted. Leighton folded both notes up.

"Here," she said, to catch Michael's attention; he'd turned away to give her privacy while she wrote.

"I'll give it to Mike first thing."

Leighton nodded. It would have to be enough, for now.

*

Saporta called on Tuesday morning. Victoria saw his name flash onto the screen of her phone, but let it ring almost until it would have gone to voice mail before she picked it up.

"Vicky-T," he drawled, "you never did have your way with me."

"It seems," she drawled back, "that every time we're having a good time, your work interrupts us."

"You're a demanding woman. My afternoon's free."

"I am demanding," Victoria answered. "You're going to have to do better than that."

"Special showing of independent short films at NYU," he said promptly. "Starts at three. I'll pick you up at one for lunch."

"Phone off?"

There was a moment before Saporta said, "You drive a hard bargain Victoria Teague. Phone off."

"See you at one." Victoria hung up before he could say anything else. She had the perfect outfit for a movie matinee, and while it didn't really take that much time to put together, it worked better if Saporta thought he had to chase her.

The first thing he did when she came downstairs after he buzzed up to let her know he was there was pull her close, arm tight around her waist, and kiss her deep and demanding. The second thing, when she was still a little breathless, was hold up his phone to show her it was turned off.

Victoria climbed into the car and let Saporta hold her hand, resting them both on her thigh, all the way to the Village where the driver stopped in front of what turned out to be an entirely funky vegetarian cafe.

Saporta kept the conversation light over lunch, never dipping too heavily into flirtation and staying away from his business interests entirely. They split a slice of cake for dessert. It was Saporta's idea, which meant he probably knew as well as she did that shared food was a good way to build intimacy.

Saporta held her hand on the walk to the theater, twining their arms together and staying close to her. They didn't hurry, either, just ambled along looking in windows. Even though Victoria had to keep thinking about what Victoria Teague would think of things, rather than what she herself thought, it was generally pleasant.

Since they'd just eaten, they didn't bother with the refreshments on offer, although Saporta dropped cash into the "Keep this series alive! Leave us your change!" jar on the table. Victoria didn't comment, but Saporta had to know she'd noticed. At least some of his ill-gotten gains were going to some constructive use.

The theater, with its mix of students standing around chatting, backpacks and messenger bags hanging off their shoulders, swamped her with a wave of nostalgia for the time when she was one of the eager film students arriving early to get good seats.

Saporta found them a pair of empty seats not too far away from the screen. "Do you miss it?"

"Yes," Victoria answered honestly, without adding the truth that time changed people, and she couldn't do what she did now if she were still in film school.

*

Saporta finally called and invited Leighton to come to the deli for lunch on Thursday. When she arrived, it was empty but for Saporta and an employee Leighton hadn't seen before behind the counter, doing something with his cell.

"Elle, glad you could make it." Saporta stood and gestured at the counter where the employee had put away his phone and was waiting attentively. "Benefit of owning the place. Free sandwiches whenever I want them."

Leighton laughed, because she was meant to, and ordered. After ordering his own sandwich, Saporta led her back to the table he'd been sitting at.

"Of course, you're not really here for the sandwiches."

"No," Leighton said, "although I do appreciate it. I have meetings all day, and I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to fit lunch in."

"Then let's get right down to business. I'm expanding. The club is great, but it's time to take it to the next level. We've had low-level entrepreneurs, shall we say, using it as a springboard for their business, but it's time for me to take control of it."

Finally, a lead she could use for more than just liquor and code violations. Leighton made herself think like Elle. "What, exactly, are you talking about?"

Saporta searched her face, and seemed to find whatever he was looking for. "Product, Ms. Masters. Product that is going to make us both very rich. If you're not interested, you can walk away now. Otherwise, you can invest. On the books, your money will go to the deli. In reality, you'll be providing the capital for my next business interest, and it will earn you an excellent return."

Leighton took a bite out of her sandwich and used the moment while her mouth was full to decide what she should say next.

"What kind of return?"

Saporta smiled, as if he knew she was hooked. Which she was, of course, but he wasn't supposed to know that quite yet. "This is my first foray into this business, but it should far outstrip what you'd get in any ordinary club."

"And your product." Leighton left the barest pause before the word. "So far you've somehow flown under the radar of regulation. How do I know this won't bring us both into the reach of the long arm of the law?"

Saporta laughed. "You watch too much TV. Trust me, as long as our clientele remains safe at the club, no one's going to bother with us."

Leighton relaxed. That "our" meant she was in.

*

It was only three o'clock, which meant the club was almost empty but for a handful of employees and a few dedicated gamblers. Victoria checked with the bartender on duty who told her Saporta was in his office. She went straight back without glancing at any of the other patrons and tapped on the office door before pushing it open.

"And I'm telling you I don't give a shit," Saporta said into his phone. He looked up at the door opening, and a smile spread across his face. He held up a hand and mouthed something that was probably "Just a minute."

Victoria smiled back, and settled herself onto the couch to wait.

"Because I took care of my part of the bargain. I have the money. You're supposed to be supplying the goods."

There was a chance Saporta was talking about liquor or a new sound system for his apartment, but he also had papers spread out across his desk and his tone, despite the way his eyes were tracing the lines of Victoria's legs from her heels to the bottom of her skirt, was too tense for something quite so routine. Either way, he trusted her enough to let her be in the room while he did business.

"Club's open then, make it eleven." Saporta's smile this time seemed to be for more than just Victoria. "Good." He ended the call and put his phone down on the desk as he came around it. "Victoria, I wasn't expecting you."

Victoria stood up so it would be easier to kiss him, lingering and slow. "I had some time, and I wanted to see you."

Saporta returned her kiss with interest. "I'm glad you came. I could use the break."

"Problems?" Victoria kept the question casual, as if she were interested only because it was him.

"Oh, you know, suppliers wanting to back out on deals. Same shit, different day." Saporta's irritation melted into a smile. "Better now that you're here."

Victoria made a face at him. "That was cheesy."

"But true." Saporta unwrapped one of the arms he had around her and guided her back down onto the couch, keeping her close against him the whole time. "You make any day better."

"Now you're just bullshitting me."

"Nah." Saporta pulled her legs over his so she was almost sitting in his lap. His hand stayed on her knee.

It was nice, to be touched. She had to do this, and there was no reason she couldn't appreciate the good parts, even when they weren't with Leighton.

"One hundred percent, grade-A truth." Saporta's thumb swept across the skin of her leg in a hypnotically rhythmic arc. "And you wanted to see me. Admit it, your day's better with me in it."

Victoria let her lips twitch upwards in a flirtatious half smile. "Maybe I just wanted you to stroke my ego."

Saporta's hand slid up her thigh. "Your ego, huh?"

Victoria laughed and pushed his hand back down. "Just my ego. I'm not that kind of girl, Gabe Saporta."

"That's too bad. We could have a good time on this sofa."

*

For a guy who ran an underground club, Saporta sure was fond of paperwork. Leighton took it to Spencer Smith. In addition to occasionally acting as the PD's forensic accountant, he also had his own practice, which made it easier for him to be Elle Masters' accountant.

"Jesus," he said after he'd made copies and looked over everything. "This guy, or whoever he has doing his finances, is good. I know this is all bullshit, and I even think it looks legit." He pointed at a couple of things. "Look at this. Everything goes through the deli, and they've made the numbers look reasonable, even though there's no way a place that size does this kind of business." Smith shook his head. "I know they're criminals and all, but I'm impressed."

Leighton shook her head. "I don't need you to be impressed. I need you to find anything that will stand up in court."

"Yeah, I know." Smith sifted through the papers again. "This is pretty tightly put together. It's going to take some time." He looked up at her. "You're good to sign them, though. He's not trying to screw you over." He paused for a second and then added, "Except for the part where this could land everyone involved in jail."

"That's what we're hoping for." Leighton gathered up her copies of the paperwork. "Call me if there's anything else you want me to ask him for."

"Will do." Smith didn't look up as she left the office.

Finally, they were getting somewhere. Whatever Smith could unravel from the paperwork would definitely stand up in court, and while Saporta hadn't yet said "drugs" out loud, it was only a matter of time until they had proof on that count too.

Leighton's first impulse was to tell Victoria they were getting somewhere, but of course she couldn't do that. Victoria was with Saporta. Leighton grimaced at her reflection in the elevator doors. She hadn't forgotten what Michael had said, and it rankled at her every time she had a moment to herself. If Saporta was still playing it coy about the product he was moving, Victoria's relationship with him was probably their best bet for gathering evidence about the particulars.

Leighton plastered on a smile once she reached the lobby. Elle Masters' business dealings were going well, no matter how much Leighton hated that it was getting between her and Victoria. If they could keep this up for just a little longer, just long enough to get proof Saporta was moving drugs, they would have enough to lock him up for a very long time.

Leighton hailed a cab. She could drop in on the club. If Saporta was there, she could insist they see a notary and sign the papers. The sooner she could get this done, the sooner they could get what they needed, and the sooner she could be with Victoria again.

And if he wasn't there, at least she could get a drink.

*

Victoria leaned forward to wrap her arms around Saporta's neck. "As exciting as that sounds."

Saporta laughed and closed the remaining distance between them. "I get it. You're secretly a romantic." He pressed his cheek against hers and whispered in her ear. "So am I."

Victoria nuzzled his cheek and thought about sharing desserts and his gift of a book that fit right with her interests. "I hate to break this to you, but I'm not sure that's a secret."

Saporta's smile, when he pulled back to look at her, was surprisingly sweet. "Maybe I'm just not good at hiding things from you."

There was a brisk knock, then the door to Saporta's office opened and Leighton came through it. Victoria's first impulse was to jump away from Saporta, but she stifled it and stayed relaxed against him.

Leighton, for her part, arched an eyebrow at them, the only expression on her otherwise impassive face. "Enjoying some time with the clientele?"

"I've told you," Saporta volleyed back, equally impassive, "Victoria is much more than just the clientele. What can I do for you, Elle?"

Leighton's performance was pitch perfect as she eyed Victoria. The rich divorcee clearly didn't think much of Saporta's party girl. "I'm here on business."

Saporta didn't make any move to let go of Victoria. "Please," he said, "pull up a chair."

Leighton looked at Victoria again, then turned one of the chairs in front of Saporta's desk around and sat. Victoria watched the press of skin on skin when she crossed her legs. That was skin she was usually allowed to touch.

"I've spoken with my accountant and my lawyer." Leighton pulled something out of her bag. "They've both given me the okay to sign these."

Victoria couldn't see what was in the folder, but they had to be the papers to make Leighton - or Elle - part of Saporta's business. Saporta wasn't throwing her out while he did business, either, which meant they were getting close. If Leighton was signing papers, it wouldn't be long before she would have enough solid evidence on how the club was run, even if Victoria couldn't do anything more than split Saporta's attention.

"Let me get a pen." Saporta gently pushed Victoria's legs off of his.

"Not so fast." Leighton jerked the folder back. "I never sign important papers without a notary."

Saporta raised an eyebrow but said, "Sensible policy. I think there's one up the street." He put his hand on Victoria's thigh. "Want to go for a walk?"

Victoria had been prepared to leave with a comment about how boring business was anyway - the less he thought she cared about it the more likely he was to let things slip in front of her - but this would give her a front row seat to how he worked and let her spend a few more minutes near Leighton.

"With you? Sure."

Saporta smiled wide and stood, pulling her up with him. "Let's go."

*

Since Saporta was the one who knew where they were going, he led the way once they left the deli. And since Victoria was ostensibly dating him, she walked with him, leaving Leighton to walk behind them and try not to focus on their joined hands to the exclusion of all else. It was only temporary and it wouldn't last much longer. It was only a matter of time before one of them was in far enough to meet Saporta's suppliers, and then they could be done with this job and Victoria would be all hers again.

The notary was actually three blocks up the street, three blocks filled with Saporta's cheerful but inane chatter on the neighborhood. He kept glancing back to include Leighton, but Victoria's smiles and attention were reserved only for him.

The notary - a brisk older woman in a copy shop and stationery store - took their two dollars, witnessed their signatures, and stamped each document in turn. Leighton and Saporta each took their copies back, and Saporta shook her hand.

"Welcome to the business, partner." He threw an arm around Victoria's shoulder. "Care to join us for a celebratory drink?"

Leighton smiled at both of them. "I'd love to." It wasn't a complete lie. She wanted to spend time with Victoria, even in Saporta's presence. They'd been together too long for Leighton to be comfortable being away from her for any length of time.

Saporta kept his arm around Victoria all the way back to the club where he installed Leighton and Victoria at a table while he went to the bar for their drinks.

Leighton smiled politely at Victoria, trying to think past the part of her that wanted to put her hands all over Victoria to the part that would tell her how Elle Masters would handle the situation.

"So you and Gabe?"

Victoria smiled back sweetly, but with an edge. "Yes." There was a hard edge to her voice, too, like every time someone had tried to hit on Leighton when they were out together.

Leighton didn't have to fake her laugh. "Relax, Victoria. I'm not competition. He's all yours. It's a bad idea to mix business with pleasure anyway."

Saporta came back just at the last sentence. "Does that mean you don't want the drink?"

Leighton took it from his hand. "I want the drink." She raised her glass. "To new beginnings."

Saporta and Victoria clinked their glasses against hers. Leighton couldn't help watching the way Victoria pressed her lips together after she took a sip of her drink. At least Saporta didn't notice; he was too busy watching Victoria himself, then leaning across the table to kiss her. Victoria returned his kiss without even glancing at Leighton, although when she sat back in her chair, she flashed Leighton the briefest glance of triumph, just fast enough that if Saporta caught it he would know he wasn't supposed to have seen it.

*

Leighton buying into Saporta's business was good for the investigation, but it had Victoria on edge. Leighton was in the club more often than not when Victoria dropped in, and it was torture to be so close to her, especially when the only real contact they had were carefully generic notes passed through Mike and Michael.

"Do you not like Elle?" Saporta asked when Victoria dropped by on an afternoon Leighton happened to not be there.

Victoria was half in his lap again, which meant she had to pull back to make a face at him. "She's always here."

Saporta chuckled and smiled against her neck. "Are you jealous?" He kissed his way up to her ear. "You shouldn't be. It's just business with her."

Victoria pushed him away. Jealousy was as good as anything for starting a fight. She'd been making things too easy for him anyway, and romantic or not, that wasn't going to keep his interest.

"She sees more of you than I do." Victoria stood up and straightened her clothes, pulling Victoria Teague, cool party girl, back together.

"So do Alex and Ryland. That's the way this business goes."

Victoria stared down at him and hoped like hell this wasn't a mistake. "Alex and Ryland aren't beautiful women."

Saporta stood as well. "And even if they were I wouldn't be involved with them either." He paused, tilted his head, then said, "Maybe Ryland. He's tall."

Victoria crossed her arms over her chest.

Saporta put his hands on her biceps. "Come on, Vicky-T, that was a joke."

Victoria twisted away from him. "Not funny, Gabe. Not funny at all." She scooped up her purse.

"Victoria, listen to me." He didn't try to touch her again, but she stopped anyway, giving him a moment to plead his case. She wanted it to eventually work, after all. "The business is expanding and it's taking up a lot of time. Yes, with Elle." He did touch her then, brushing his finger over her cheek. "But I'd rather be with you, and things will settle down again soon enough."

Victoria stepped back and around him. "I'm not the kind of girl who likes to be kept waiting." She jerked the door open, and of course Leighton was just on the other side of it, hand raised to knock. "I can see they're settling down." She pushed past Leighton, trying not to shiver at the brush of Leighton's arm against hers. It had been so long since she'd touched Leighton.

"Victoria," Saporta called after her, and Leighton asked, "Problems?" and then Victoria was out of earshot, striding through the club and up the stairs.

Victoria had to wait for the bus and she couldn't stop rubbing her arm where she and Leighton had touched. She recognized one of the other people at the stop as one of Saporta's men, not even trying to keep her from seeing him. He wasn't one of the smarter ones. He would probably just think she was upset by their fight.

*

Saporta sighed. "She doesn't like the time I'm spending with you. She'll cool down." He glanced down the hallway again before he let Leighton into his office and closed the door behind them. Saporta sat at his desk, and Leighton perched on one of the chairs in front of it.

"Can I offer you some unsolicited advice?"

Saporta gestured at her to continue.

"Don't let her cool down too much. When she stops caring, then you're in trouble."

Saporta rubbed his hands over his face. "Is that what happened with your ex-husband?"

Victoria would never cheat on her and then leave the way the fictional Mr. Masters had, but just seeing her with Saporta hurt enough that Leighton could imagine what it would be like.

"I didn't stop caring," Leighton said. "I just faced reality and made the best of it by taking him for everything he was worth." That might work for Elle Masters, but Leighton couldn't imagine doing that to someone she loved the way she loved Victoria.

Saporta grimaced. "I think staying single was a good idea for me." He tapped his fingers against the desk for a moment. "This probably calls for something other than flowers."

Leighton laughed briefly. "If she doesn't like the time we're spending together, you should spend some time with her."

"I'd like to. It just seems like there's too much to do." He pushed a file folder across the table at her. "Tell me what you think."

Leighton skimmed through it. It appeared to be a price list of some sort, neat columns of numbers lined up across the page.

"What am I looking at?"

"An offer," Saporta said. "Renegotiating with one of our suppliers."

Leighton read the numbers a little more closely. It wasn't the new product. The prices were wrong and the quantities didn't make sense. Liquor maybe. Or with Saporta, it could be the butcher who supplied the deli. They were doing a brisk business in post-clubbing sandwiches.

Leighton closed the folder. "This doesn't mean anything unless I know what we're paying now, and unlike you, I don't have every detail of this club memorized yet."

Saporta leaned back in his chair and looked at her. Leighton refused to be intimidated. If he'd accepted her into the club, he was going to have to accept that she wasn't going to offer an uninformed opinion or just go along with his every idea.

After a moment, Saporta turned and opened the filing cabinet. He handed her a second file folder. Leighton opened it and set it side by side with the other one on the table so she could look back and forth between them.

"Clever," she said after she'd digested what they were telling her. "Overall it looks like a better deal, but this," she tapped a line on the newer prices, "is going up in price and demand."

Saporta smiled. "Exactly." He handed her a third file, which contained a marked up version of the newer price list. "I'm working on a counteroffer. Care to offer an opinion on that as well?"

Leighton put it next to the other two. "Absolutely."

*

Victoria kicked off her shoes and threw herself down onto her bed. Victoria Asher was supposed to be tough, but Victoria Teague had just had a fight with her boyfriend and Victoria herself had to storm out of there past the one person she most wanted to be with. She let herself cry into her pillow - and doing it without Gizmo there to curl up against her and lick her face only made her cry more - until she ran out of tears. She turned onto her side, pulled her knees up toward her chest, and stared at the room that wasn't really hers until her eyelids kept dropping shut, when she gave in and fell asleep.

She woke up later to an insistent buzzing. It took her a long moment to realize it was someone buzzing up. They were still waiting when she made her way from the bedroom to the door and asked who it was.

"Delivery for Victoria Teague."

Victoria buzzed her up and glanced at her reflection in the mirror in the entryway. Her eyeliner and mascara had run all down her cheeks. She scrubbed briefly at it with a Kleenex from the box on the table below the mirror, but it didn't do much good. It was only a delivery anyway.

The uniformed delivery woman was carrying a vase with a single red rose and a card holder. She smiled sympathetically at Victoria when she handed it over. Victoria signed for it, thanked her, and took the vase into the apartment. She put it carefully down on the kitchen counter before she took the envelope from its holder and sat on the couch to read the note.  


> My dear Victoria,
> 
> You're right. I've been neglecting you. Let me make it up to you?

  
It was signed with a scrawling G.

Victoria rubbed the last of the sleepiness out of her eyes and got up to rummage through her purse for her phone.

"Victoria," Saporta said softly when he picked up.

"What did you have in mind?"

"Dinner," he answered promptly. "Just you and me. Tonight?"

Victoria looked at the flower on her counter. She wanted to say no and spend the evening eating the ice cream she was sure was still in the freezer and watching bad television. But Victoria Teague was willing to be coaxed.

"Phone off?"

"Yes." His voice curled around her, too comfortable. "Just us."

Victoria glanced across the room at the clock on the microwave and did a quick time calculation. She would need to shower, or at least wash her face and redo her makeup, and change, and it would be good to make him wait a little.

"You can pick me up at eight."

"On the dot with bells on. You won't regret this."

She couldn't, not when it was her job, not when it was going to get Saporta off the fucking street, but he would.

*

The club was a good time, but the volume of the music was starting to give Leighton a headache. The hell with it. Saporta didn't always party there; there was no reason Leighton had to stay.

Just the silence of the stairway was a relief, and the deli was quiet enough, a few people on their way in and Novarro behind the counter.

Leighton's stomach rumbled, but she didn't want to eat at the deli. She'd had enough of sandwiches. She couldn't go anywhere she and Victoria usually went, and she didn't really want to deal with the hassle of one of the more upscale places Elle Masters favored. But there was the tapas bar, where she'd made the connection that led to all of this. There was a good chance she'd run into Dueñas, but that could work in her favor.

The place was packed. Leighton worked her way to an empty space at the bar next to a man who appeared to be alone. He smiled at her, and she smiled back while she waited for Antonio the hot bartender to bring her a menu and take her order for a glass of sangria.

He leaned toward her. "Hi. Come here often?"

"No, actually, this is only my second time. You?"

"Recently, yeah." He shifted closer to her. "Food's good, and the sangria does the job."

Leighton laughed a little and turned her attention away when Antonio came back with her sangria and took her order for the tortilla Española.

"It is good."

"Elle?"

Leighton turned at the question. She was right to think she might run into Dueñas.

"Bianca!" Leighton stepped down from her barstool so she could hug Dueñas. "It's good to see you."

"You too." Dueñas glanced at the man Leighton had been talking to and squeezed into the space between him and Leighton. "Did you ever talk to Gabe?"

Leighton scooted her barstool down to give Dueñas a little more room. "I did better than that. I'm investing in the club."

That actually seemed to leave Dueñas speechless for a moment. "I didn't think he'd ever take on a partner."

Leighton shrugged. "He needs the capital to expand and it seems like a good investment." She sipped her sangria casually but caught the way Dueñas's eyes flicked up and down Leighton's body.

"Just an investment?"

Leighton held up her hands. "Bad divorce, remember? I'm not getting involved with anyone." Dueñas seemed like a nice woman, questionable taste in ex-boyfriends aside, and Leighton didn't want to hurt her. On the other hand, Dueñas would do well to stay as far away from Saporta as possible. "Besides," she added, "he has a new girlfriend."

Going by her sharp inhalation, Dueñas wasn't over Saporta, dating the hot bartender or not.

Leighton put her hand on Dueñas's arm. "Sorry."

Dueñas smiled, but not all the way to her eyes. "No, no, it's fine. We've both moved on."

*

The buzzer rang at eight o'clock precisely. Victoria threw on her coat and went downstairs to meet Saporta.

His smile when she stepped through the door was soft, and he came forward to take her hands. "Hi." He raised one of her hands to his lips. "My phone is off, and I'm yours for the evening."

Victoria stepped closer, close enough that his arms slid around her and she could press her face into his shoulder. "Promise?"

Saporta kissed her, a soft brush of his lips on hers. He really was a romantic. "Promise."

Saporta held her hand in the car, but didn't try to talk. Victoria expected something like their first date: expensive and trendy. Instead, the car left them at a small, cozy Italian restaurant. There was a place like it in their neighborhood that she and Leighton liked to go to.

After they'd ordered, Saporta took her hand across the table. "I'm sorry I neglected you."

"You should be."

Saporta's mouth twisted into something rueful. "I promise you I am. I also promise you that Elle is nothing more than a business associate." He squeezed her hand. "You're the only girl for me."

He seemed to really mean it, and in truth Victoria hadn't seen him being more than casually friendly to another woman. She nodded a little. "Okay."

Saporta's smile took over his whole face. "Good." He leaned across the table to catch her lips in a light kiss. "You look lovely."

"Thank you. This is a nice place."

Saporta shrugged a little. "I know it's not one of the trendy places we usually go, but the food's good, and it's quiet enough to talk."

"I like it. It's comfortable."

Their waiter came back with the wine, and their dinner came just after that. The food was good. Not that Victoria expected anything different; criminal he might be, but Saporta had good taste in restaurants.

"Good?"

"Very." Victoria had ordered their fettuccine Alfredo without the optional shrimp, so she held out a forkful of it. "Want to try?" Saporta wasn't the only one who could use sharing food as a way to build intimacy.

Saporta offered her a bit of his lasagna in return. From the outside they probably looked like a couple in the first stages of love. While they'd never been quite so cutesy in public, Victoria remembered what that stage was like with Leighton; it wasn't that hard to fake it with Saporta.

They lingered over coffee and a shared order of Tiramisu.

Saporta took her arm, pulling her close as they left the restaurant. Victoria went easily, tipping her head onto his shoulder.

"Thank you for dinner."

"Thank you for letting me make it up to you."

When she glanced up, Victoria could see Saporta's smile. She looked at him for a long moment. He was being genuinely sweet, and she'd been working on maintaining his interest for a while now.

"I'm glad I did." She leaned up to kiss his cheek. "Would you like to come back to my place and keep making it up me?"

Saporta looked surprised for the briefest moment before a slow smile spread across his face. "I'd love to."

*

Dueñas chatted briefly with Leighton for a few more minutes before excusing herself with the excuse that she'd seen someone else she knew. While she did stop to talk to someone else across the room, Leighton was pretty sure it was mostly because she didn't want the reminder Leighton presented that Saporta had moved on. Leighton could sympathize. The last thing she wanted was to think about Saporta with Victoria.

That was the part of this operation she hadn't thought through very well. Or maybe she just hadn't let herself think about it. She and Victoria both knew what being undercover meant, and they'd both done things they would have preferred not to in the course of an investigation. Usually, though, they were together, or close enough that they could come home from that and be together. This time, Victoria was stuck seducing Saporta alone and all Leighton could do was watch from afar and hate every minute Saporta got to touch Victoria.

Leighton shook her head to shake it off. She had to concentrate. There was no time off in undercover work, and she should be using this time to either build her cover or figure out how she could get Saporta to share the details about the drugs with her. It was definitely drugs; she'd seen a couple of women coming out of the bathroom glassy-eyed and sniffling, and she'd witnessed at least three of Saporta's employees selling to club patrons. But without the links, without proof that Saporta was involved and without names of his suppliers, they couldn't bring him down. Saporta was more than smart enough to stay clean enough to sidestep casual investigation. What she really needed was to get him to include her in a meeting with a supplier.

As soon as she'd paid for her dinner and drinks, Leighton slid off her barstool and headed for the door. What she needed was a plan, and Saporta had entrusted her with copies of the paperwork on one of his other suppliers. There had to be a way to make that work for her. It would be better if she could get Smith to look it over, but she'd prepped this case long enough to know what to look for, and she'd call him in the morning.

She hailed a cab outside the bar and made herself use the ride back to her apartment to calm down. There was nothing she could do, right this minute, to get Victoria back from Saporta. It was going to take time.

It was hard to remember that, though, when she got home to an empty apartment, no Gizmo there to welcome her home, no Victoria, not even a trace of them in the life she had to lead until they could get enough to put Saporta away for good.

*

Victoria woke up confused. There was another body next to hers, but she and Leighton were working different parts of their case. It was that thought that made her remember: the case, and Saporta. She didn't want to open her eyes, but keeping them closed wouldn't change the fact that Saporta was in her bed.

Saporta was already awake, watching her as she turned toward him and opened her eyes. "Good morning."

"Morning." Victoria scrunched her eyes shut, then opened them again. Saporta was smiling softly at her. "What?"

"Just thinking how beautiful you are." His hand came to rest on her hip, slid up to the edge of her breast.

Victoria stretched, making his hand slide down a little, away from her breast. "You're already in my bed. You don't have to flatter me."

"Does it count as flattery if it's the truth?"

Victoria rolled her eyes. "You can get out of my bed if you're just going to bullshit me." She wanted him out of her bed. She wanted to burn the fucking sheets.

Saporta laughed, but only dipped in for the slightest brush of his lips to hers. "I'd rather not get out of your bed, but I have a meeting and I should go home and change first."

"Mmmm, okay." Victoria ran her hand down his arm to tangle their fingers together. "If I come by the club tonight, are you going to have time for me?"

Saporta raised their hands to his lips and kissed each of her fingers in turn before kissing the back of her hand. "I think I can pencil you in." He turned her hand over, placed a kiss in the center of her palm, and curled her fingers around it.

Victoria pulled the blankets tighter around her after Saporta got out of bed. Anyone else would have had to rummage for their clothes, but Saporta had laid his carefully over the back of the chair in the corner.

"You can find your way out, right? I'm going back to sleep."

Saporta leaned over her to kiss her forehead. "I think I can manage it." He ran the back of his hand over her cheek. "You rest. I'll see you tonight."

Victoria managed a sleepy smile for him that she only let drop entirely when she heard the door to the apartment shut behind him. This was the part she fucking hated about undercover work.

The bed was still warm from the heat of both their bodies, but Victoria was shivering. She bunched the blankets up around her and made herself stay there for long enough that she could be sure Saporta wasn't coming back. Then she went to the bathroom without looking back and took the hottest shower she could stand.

This was the shittiest part of undercover work, but the shower washed away the worst of the feeling and sleeping with him would make him trust her, which could only help them close this case faster.

*

Saporta rolled into the club looking self-satisfied, freshly showered, and vaguely surprised to see Leighton waiting for him at the bar.

"I hope you don't mind," she said. "I thought I would tag along, see if I could make myself useful."

Saporta's eyes narrowed at her.

"Relax," she laughed. "I'm not trying to take over. I'm just looking to do my part to protect our investment."

Saporta looked her over - she'd dressed professionally, in a skirt suit and low heels - and said, "All right. Let's see what you can do."

Leighton did her best not to smirk as she followed him to his office. It was only a small victory, and someone was likely to notice her doing it.

"I'm sure you've looked over the numbers," Saporta said as he took his place behind his desk.

"And the counteroffers from other suppliers." Leighton took one of the chairs in front of the desk, the one farther from the door. "We should be able to use those as leverage."

Saporta pinned her with a look. "I believe in loyalty. We don't want to break off our relationship completely, just get a reasonable deal."

"Understood." Leighton made herself look suitably chastised.

"Good." Saporta unlocked the file cabinet and drew out a file, probably the one with the supplier offers in it.

No sooner were he and Leighton settled than Suarez opened the door and ushered in a man slightly less well dressed than any of them. Narcotics' files on him said that he was Tyler Rann, and that he was one of the principal liquor suppliers for the city's underground clubs.

"Tyler." Saporta stood and came around the desk to grip Rann's hand in a vigorous handshake. "I don't believe you've met my latest investor. Elle, this is Tyler Rann, one of our suppliers. Tyler, Elle Masters."

Leighton stood to shake his hand.

"Nice to meet you," Rann said.

"Likewise." Leighton sat down again, and Saporta waved Rann into the other chair.

"I have to tell you the truth," Saporta said. "I've had other offers." He tapped the folder on the table. "We've been doing business a long time, and I don't want to ruin our relationship, but Elle is an investor and I have to look out for the best interests of both her and the club."

Rann glanced at Leighton, then seemed to dismiss her from the conversation. "Gabe, come on, we're running at razor-thin margins already."

"Really?" Leighton said. If Saporta was going to put her in the role of bad cop, she could play that role. "Our other offers seem to disagree with that assessment of the market."

Rann turned to her. "Do your other offers include insurance? Yes, my price might be a little higher than theirs, but I'm not going to get picked up by the cops two weeks from now and leave you making emergency runs to Costco while you scramble to find a new supplier."

"We don't doubt your reliability," Saporta said. "But let's see if we can shave a few cents off here and there."

Leighton had no doubt that a few cents was all Saporta had ever wanted to shave off.

*

As much as she wanted to, Victoria didn't wash the sheets. If there was a chance that Saporta would come home with her again, she didn't want there to be anything that might make him start to ask questions about her life. She was careful about her choice of clothes, too: short skirt, cleavage-baring top, and heels, just like any other day.

She knew she had it right when she got to the club and Novarro's eyes ran down her body in a quick, appreciative glance before he dialed it back and greeted her with a wave.

Victoria waved back and headed down the stairs. The most important thing to remember was that Victoria Teague was confident in her hold on Saporta.

She strode through the club to the bar. She wanted a drink, plus there was a good chance that was where Saporta would be. She was in luck on both counts; Saporta was at the far end of the bar, and she gestured to the bartender, who had a drink waiting for her by the time she got there.

Victoria ignored the crowd around Saporta - Leighton was there, and she wasn't sure she'd be able to hold her cover quite so strongly if she looked at her - and went right up to him. She twined her arms around his neck as she kissed him, deeply enough to stake her claim to both him and the other people around him.

She stopped kissing him and whispered, "Hi," into his ear.

"Hi," he murmured back, pressing a kiss behind her ear. He waited for her to pick up her drink before he turned her around, arms still around her, and said, "Everyone, this is Victoria. Victoria, you know Elle. These are some of our patrons."

Victoria smiled at the group, mostly women, surrounding Saporta. "Nice to meet you." She sipped at her drink and leaned back against Saporta's chest. Leighton, standing next to them, didn't look very impressed, and struck up a conversation with the woman on her other side.

People moved away after a while, and others came to bask in Saporta's attention. Victoria, both as herself and as Victoria Teague, quickly became bored with it. Nothing of consequence was happening or, she judged from the increasing noise level, going to happen.

Victoria turned in Saporta's arms to capture his attention. "Are we going to stand here all night? I want to dance."

Saporta brushed his lips over her cheek. "There are still people I want to talk to." He glanced to the side, toward Leighton. "Why don't you go dance with Elle? You can get to know each other better."

The twist to Leighton's lips said she found the whole thing very amusing. Victoria looked her over, blatant enough that everyone around them would catch it. She downed her drink and reached past Saporta to put it on the bar.

*

"Come on," Victoria said, or Leighton thought she did. Victoria's hand had closed around her wrist with the words, and it was hard to focus on anything but her touch, the almost electrical tingle it sparked.

She caught the tone, if not the words of whatever Victoria said after that, something flirtatious directed at her.

It was smart. If Saporta was like most of the men they investigated, he would get off on the idea that Victoria might be sexually attracted to her, and it would give them an excuse to be a little closer on the dance floor than they might be otherwise.

Leighton put her glass down. "Don't worry," she said for their audience's benefit as Victoria pulled her to the dance floor, "I'm not trying to steal your man."

"You couldn't anyway." Victoria sounded completely sure of herself, so sure Leighton wasn't sure if she was sure or if she was playing at being sure to scare off Elle. Being undercover got messy that way.

And then they were dancing. It was both familiar and not. She and Victoria had danced together in clubs so many times, but this time they weren't themselves. They couldn't twine around each other, ignore the rest of the world and let go. At the end of the night, they weren't going to go home together.

Leighton had to focus to remember that. If she let go, if she just danced, she would forget that she was Elle Masters dancing with Victoria Teague and just be Leighton dancing with Victoria. She wanted that back.

Victoria was keeping a careful distance between them, just a few inches. It put them close enough that to anyone watching, it would look like they were just a couple of girls dancing together, but it kept them far enough apart to be a reminder.

"You're good at this," Victoria said, almost shouting over the music.

Leighton laughed. "I've been learning how to party, since the divorce." She shimmied closer to Victoria and used the pretense of turning them on the floor to try to catch a glimpse of Saporta's reaction. There were too many people in the way for her to see him clearly, but Blackinton was in the crowd, and he raised his eyebrows at her. She grinned back at him and turned them again. It could have been happenstance that he was in the crowd at that moment, or it could have been Saporta keeping an eye on one or the other of them. There was no way to tell, and it made doing anything other than dancing for Saporta's pleasure too dangerous.

Victoria dipped closer to say, "It's a little loud to get to know each other."

"Yes," Leighton said. "I'm not sure this was Gabe's best plan."

"I think he likes it." Victoria nudged Leighton's arm, and she turned her head in that direction to see Saporta coming through the crowd toward them.

*

Victoria stayed where she was instead of going to meet Saporta. Sleeping with him should have made him sure of her, and the look on his face showed that he had something of an appreciation for the picture she and Leighton made together.

Saporta slid into place behind her, his arms coming between her and Leighton. "Vicky-T, you are an enticing creature."

Victoria turned in his arms. "I should hope so, since this was your idea."

"That it was, but you're neglecting Elle." Saporta turned her around so she was facing Leighton again.

Leighton was watching them with a cool gaze. Victoria wanted there to be more there, some feeling about Victoria's closeness to Saporta, but if Leighton was feeling something about it, it didn't make it onto her face.

Victoria moved toward Leighton, Saporta coming with her, keeping the contact between their bodies. In a crowd, it was easier not to think about that contact, about how well Saporta knew her body now. One of his hands gripped her hip while the other settled over her stomach.

Leighton laughed - Victoria could see the motion, even if it was quiet enough not to be heard over the music - and moved closer to them. "Don't worry," she said to Saporta over Victoria's shoulder. "I'm not trying to steal your girl."

Saporta pulled Victoria closer, his whole body pressed to her back. "I wouldn't blame you if you were. She is a lovely thing."

It took every last bit of Victoria's willpower not to jam an elbow into his groin. "So I'm just a thing?" she asked lightly.

"Oh, more than that," Saporta said. "You're a most interesting woman." Victoria wasn't sure if she should believe it or if he was just saying it because he knew it was what she wanted to hear.

"I'm sure she is," Leighton said, drawing their attention back to her. "And I'd love to get to know her sometime when we can hear each other without shouting."

Saporta laughed hard enough to shake them both. "I'm sure she'd like that."

Victoria put her hand over the one of his on her stomach. "I would. Another time." She turned, dismissing Leighton, and hooked one arm around Saporta's neck. "Tonight I just want to dance with you."

Saporta smiled that charming, open smile at her, then made some kind of face, complete with shoulder shrug, at Leighton over her shoulder. Victoria could hear Leighton's laugh for a moment before it was swallowed up by the crowd and Saporta reclaimed her attention again.

"She's my business partner. Play nice." One of Saporta's hands was still on her hip, the other roaming over her back.

"I was playing plenty nice." Victoria kissed the corner of his jaw. "I wanted to dance with you more."

"Flattery will get you everywhere, Miss Teague."

Victoria smirked at him. "I've already been there."

Saporta threw back his head and laughed.

*

Blackinton slid into a space next to Leighton at the bar. "Making nice with the boss's girl?"

Leighton gestured at the bartender to make it two. "No reason for us not to get along." She nodded her thanks to the bartender and handed the second shot glass to Blackinton. "Cheers."

Blackinton tapped his glass to hers. "Cheers. What are we drinking to?"

Leighton ordered a second pair of shots. She couldn't afford to actually get drunk, at least not in public, but watching Victoria with Saporta had her more unsettled than she would like and the application of a mental numbing agent held a certain appeal.

"Do we really need a reason?"

"I have no problem furthering my hard-drinking reputation," Blackinton answered. "Yours seems to be of a different sort."

Leighton took the second pair of shots from the bartender. "The club is full and we're all having a good time." She gave Blackinton one of them. "And this is my last one."

Blackinton held up his glass. "To the last drink, then."

"To the last drink." Leighton threw back the shot and put the glass on the bar. "It's not the last dance, though. Care to join me?"

Blackinton followed suit with his drink and gestured her to the floor. "I'm not sure I can keep up with you."

Leighton laughed. "I think Victoria was just making me look good."

Blackinton jerked his chin at the crowd, toward Victoria and Saporta. "She does do that."

Leighton took them in, dancing close, Saporta's hands on Victoria and her attention on him, and then resolutely shifted her focus to keeping up with Blackinton. "She does. Think you can make me look good?"

Blackinton raised an eyebrow at her. "Get a couple of drinks in you and you become downright flirtatious. What happened to not interested in a relationship?"

"Still not interested. Just having a good time." And better if she could cement relationships with people in the organization other than just Saporta. The more contacts she had, the more information she could get. Blackinton was cagey enough not to let anything drop to a stranger, but she wasn't sure how he would be in the company of a known entity. He and Suarez were Saporta's lieutenants; they had to know about everything that was happening in the club. Besides, he was a good dancer, and he really could make her look good enough that she could follow his lead and split her attention between him and the rest of the room.

As much as she tried not to, Leighton couldn't help looking at Victoria and Saporta every once in a while. They never, as far as she could tell, moved apart, and Victoria was flirting up at him the whole time. Once, she saw them kissing. It only made her more determined to get the evidence they needed - and quickly - and get Victoria away from him.

*

Victoria woke up in Saporta's bed feeling like she hadn't gotten any sleep at all. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. She was alone, for the moment at least, and she glanced around the room until her eyes fell on the note on the nightstand.  


> I'm unfortunately not prepared to entertain a lady of your caliber. Went out to buy you a suitable breakfast.
> 
> xoxo

  
It finished with the scrawled G that was becoming familiar.

Victoria dropped the note back onto the table. Part of her wanted to just lie in bed, but she was alone in Saporta's apartment. It was too good a chance for at least preliminary snooping to pass up.

Saporta had left a bathrobe draped over the foot of the bed. Everything else about the room was so precise - even her clothes had been draped over the back of the chair in the corner, with her shoes placed precisely under it - that Saporta had to have left it for her. Victoria put it on and made sure it was open low on her chest before she belted it. It was, like every other textile in Saporta's place, expensive and extremely high-quality.

Someone as compulsively organized as Saporta seemed to be wasn't likely to keep business papers in the bedroom. Victoria gave it a cursory once-over - opening each of the dresser drawers and peeking into the closet - before leaving in favor of more productive spaces.

Victoria hadn't seen much of the apartment the night before - Saporta had been intent on taking her straight to bed - but she could see the kitchen and living room from the bedroom door. There were two more doors along the short hallway beyond the bedroom. The first one she tried led to a bathroom smaller than the one off the bedroom. The other led to what was probably intended as a second bedroom but seemed to serve as Saporta's home office.

The room held a desk, two bookshelves, and a pair of comfortable-looking chairs. The center drawer of the desk held only the sort of thing she would expect to find in the center drawer of any desk: paperclips, pens, a couple of Post-It pads. There were two drawers to either side of the center. The top ones held only envelopes and stamps. The file drawer on the right had neatly labeled hanging files containing Saporta's personal files: co-op association paperwork, copies of bank statements, tax returns. The drawer on the left was locked.

After checking to make sure the key itself wasn't in the center drawer, Victoria took a pair of paperclips from it instead. Once they were unbent, it was easy enough to jimmy the lock on the drawer.

She didn't expect to find much - most of the records were probably at the club - but the drawer had to be locked for a reason. Every file was neatly labeled in Saporta's writing. Victoria skipped the obvious ones - copies of the deeds to the building the club was in and several other properties, club maintenance records - and skipped to the ones labeled only with alphanumeric codes of some sort.

*

"Tell me you've found something." Leighton paced the length of Smith's office.

"There's nothing about drugs in here." Smith was maddeningly calm. "He has to be laundering money somewhere, but only some of it's going through the deli. If you can get me records, we can get him on that if nothing else."

"Fuck." Leighton stopped and turned to face him. "What about Strenge's jewelry business?"

Smith shrugged. "Carden and Chislett are trying to get something on it, but there's no pretext for getting the records. All we have so far are the tax records, and they look totally legit."

"Okay." Leighton started pacing again. She could get access to the jewelry business they didn't have. If nothing else, she could check it out and see if the business seemed to match the tax records. "I'll check that out."

Smith nodded. "You want me to pass on any messages?"

Smith would tell Mike and Michael she'd been by. She could use that to get more of a message to them than her obvious frustration with the case, but it was only a few days until her next meet with Michael, and there wasn't anything she was willing to channel to Victoria through Smith.

"No." Leighton gathered up her purse.

"That club has to be raking in a lot of money," Smith said, "and it has to go somewhere."

Leighton smiled tightly at him. "Thanks to my cover, some of it's coming to us. I'll let you know what else I find."

There was a Starbucks two blocks from Smith's office. Leighton ordered herself a chai latte and sat at a table to dig through her bag until she found Strenge's card. A cheerful voice that didn't belong to Strenge answered the phone, and chirped at Leighton to "please hold" when she asked for Strenge.

"Elle," Strenge said when she answered. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm at loose ends for the rest of the day, and I was wondering if I might come by and look at your jewelry. I know it's short notice, and I completely understand if you're busy."

"Not at all. I'd love to have you take a look." Strenge gave her an address that Leighton didn't remember from Narcotics' files. Then again, she couldn't remember everything, and surely they had Strenge's primary business address in there somewhere.

Leighton finished her chai in the cab, which let her off in front of a small building with a well-appointed lobby. Strenge was on the third floor. Leighton skimmed the listing of businesses while she waited for the elevator. The other occupants of the building included a therapist, an interior decorator, something whose tagline was "Arts for Children," and a couple of companies with names vague enough that they could have been anything. There was no one else in the lobby, and the elevator was similarly empty when it arrived.

Leighton had to be buzzed in, which meant they probably kept a significant amount of jewelry on the premises. Indeed, when she walked in, she was greeted with a comfortable room with display cases against the walls.

*

Saporta's alphanumerically coded files were more or less additional personnel files, the kind he wouldn't want to keep at the club. He had everything from credit reports to medical history to known associates to potential sources of blackmail on everyone who worked at the club. The more recent files also included Leighton and Victoria. Saporta didn't have anything on paper that wasn't part of their cover stories. That was a relief, at least. The last of them held a handful of deeds that weren't in the other property files. Victoria didn't recognize any of the addresses, but she started her way through them, memorizing addresses and as many of the details as she could.

She was only halfway through them when the sound of a door opening caught her attention. She put everything back, listening for Saporta's footsteps and choosing caution over speed. There were noises coming from the other end of the apartment, but he wasn't coming closer yet.

Victoria closed the drawer, reworked the lock shut, and then looked down in dismay at the paperclips in her hand. Saporta would notice them if she put them back in the drawer or tossed them in the otherwise empty wastebasket. There were windows on one wall of the office. Victoria glanced through them to make sure no one was below - she would just have to hope no one was watching her from somewhere else - then slipped one of them open, dropped the paper clips, and shut the window again. Saporta's place was so well taken care of that there wasn't even the slightest squeak of the window opening or closing.

Victoria ran her eyes over Saporta's bookshelves again before wandering out of the office and down the hall to the kitchen. If he asked, she could truthfully say she'd been investigating his reading material.

There wasn't a clear line of sight from the kitchen to the hall, so Saporta didn't even see her until she was already crossing the living room.

"You're up." He put whatever was in his hands down and came around the counter to meet her with a kiss. "I was going to bring you breakfast in bed."

"I was awake." Victoria put her arms around his neck, counting on the movement to make the robe gape and entice him into being distracted from any thoughts about what she might have been doing while awake. "I could go back, if you want me to. You did keep me up late last night."

Saporta smiled at her, a slow grin. "I did."

Victoria fought not to react too much when he squeezed her ass.

"You can if you want, or you can come watch me create a culinary masterpiece."

Victoria stepped out of his arms and raised her eyebrows. "A masterpiece?"

"So skeptical," Saporta chided. "Come with me."

*

A young woman got up from a desk at the far end of the room and came toward Leighton. "Ms. Masters, Ms. Strenge will be with you in a moment. Can I get you some coffee or tea while you wait?"

Leighton smiled at her. "No, thank you."

The woman gestured at the soft couches and chairs clustered around the room. "Please, make yourself comfortable."

Leighton forewent the seating in favor of taking herself on a tour of the display cases around the edge of the room. She'd seen enough jewelry to tell that what Strenge was selling was the kind of thing that could command a high price. It wasn't really her own style, but some of it would fit right in with Elle Masters' wardrobe.

She saw Strenge coming out of her peripheral vision and turned away from the pair of earrings she'd been bent over. "Lauren, I was just checking out some of your work."

Strenge smiled. "We do a lot of custom pieces, but we keep some stock on hand to decorate the entryway."

"It is quite decorative." Leighton glanced at the earrings again. They were sapphires set into gold, teardrops hanging from round studs with a pattern worked into the gold that seemed to draw attention to the radiance of the stones.

"Those are one of my designs." Strenge took a step back. "Would you like to come through and see the rest of the place?"

"Of course." Leighton followed Strenge through a door into a softly-lit hallway with doors off of it.

"This is my office." Strenge's office was as sumptuously appointed as the lobby. She had a carefully splayed out stack of portfolios on a table at the center of a cluster of comfortable chairs. "Have a seat." Strenge handed one of the portfolios to Leighton. "This is a sample of my work. If you're interested, we can work with you on a custom design. We can start from scratch or rework a piece you already own into something new."

Leighton flipped slowly through the portfolio. Some of the pages showed only finished pieces, beautifully lit, some on the wearer. Others showed pieces in their early stages, either as sketches or as jewelry that had been redesigned into something else, along with the finished product. It was nice. It was beautiful, even, and as far as Leighton could tell, Strenge was working with the real thing. It was not, however, the kind of beautiful that seemed as if it should command the kind of prices that would pay for the office space Strenge's business occupied. Halfway through the book, Leighton recognized one of the women.

"Whitney," she said, not even having to feign her surprise.

"Oh, you know Whitney?"

"Yes." Leighton ran her eyes over the sketches Strenge had done for Whitney's pendant and earrings. Nice, but not remarkable. "We met at the spa. She's quite a personality."

Strenge laughed. "She is. That's something I took into account when designing these for her. I like to tailor each piece to its wearer."

*

Saporta's claim of a masterpiece turned out to be only the slightest exaggeration. He was an astoundingly good cook, particularly for a man who was known to be something of a partier.

"You," Victoria said, meeting Saporta's eyes squarely and pointing at him with her fork, "are full of hidden talents."

Saporta grinned at her, then laughed. "It's all smoke and mirrors. I'm really only good at a couple of meals."

Victoria speared a bit of potato with her fork. "Well I can't cook at all, so you're one up on me." It was a lie, but a strategic one. Victoria Teague wasn't the kind of woman who would cook, and it served her purposes to have one more thing she could be demanding about to hold Saporta's interest.

"You have other talents." The intensity of Saporta's gaze left no doubt about which of her talents he was referring to.

Victoria's stomach tightened, almost rebelling against the breakfast that she had actually been enjoying. "And feeding me like this might get you the chance to enjoy more of them."

Saporta took her hand. "If I had my way, I would do nothing but." He was almost charming enough to pull it off, ridiculous as it was. If she really were Victoria Teague, she wouldn't have been able to resist. "Unfortunately, I have meetings most of the day."

Victoria wrinkled her nose. "I never knew running a club involved so many meetings."

"Real success requires real work, and in my business, half that work is networking." Saporta let go of her hand to go back to his food. "You are more than welcome to hang around here while I deal with business. I'd like to be able to think of you here waiting for me as a reward for getting through all of it."

"I don't have anything to wear here."

Saporta's smile turned wicked. "Even better."

As much as she wanted to get away from him for a while, staying would give her a chance to snoop a little more. She could read her way through Saporta's files at her own pace and see what else his apartment could tell her. Of course, it wouldn't do to let him get too sure of her.

"Maybe." Victoria smiled at him. "If you're lucky."

"You're sitting at my table wearing my robe. I think I'm already lucky." That was precisely the kind of thing most people couldn't get away with saying, and yet when Saporta said it, it seemed completely sincere. Even Victoria, who was so used to playing a role that she'd learned to tell when other people weren't being sincere, couldn't tell how much he meant it and how much of it was an act. Maybe he was one of those men who believed everything they said in the moment. Except that wasn't really Saporta; everything he'd done showed that he cared beyond the moment, enough to remember the things she liked.

*

The song and dance it took to get Strenge to start talking money was nothing short of tedious, involving all kinds of disclaimers about materials and time and design complexity. Leighton smiled at Strenge when she finally got a ballpark range, not giving anything away, but it was high, significantly higher than she would have thought. The jewelry was nice, but it wasn't that nice, even accounting for the cost of materials.

"What I'd really like to do," Leighton finally said, "is go home and pick through the stuff I have. As you can imagine, I have a lot of things from my ex. Some of it might be worth keeping in a redesign."

"Absolutely." Strenge handed over one of the brochures touting their services in remaking old jewelry into new. "Give me a call when you're ready, and we'll take a look at what you want to do."

It could just be that Strenge sold overpriced jewelry to suckers who didn't know any better, but Leighton's instincts were telling her there was more to it than that - and she didn't think it was just that she wanted to think badly of anyone connected to Saporta. Jewelry wasn't anything big enough for them to be importing anything through Strenge, and whatever she was doing had been going on a while, while the drug enterprise seemed to be new for Saporta. They could be laundering money through her somehow.

Leighton left the building without any more answers than she'd gone in with. Maybe Michael could do something with the jewelry angle. What Leighton really needed to do was get Saporta to let her in on his business dealings.

The club was the obvious next stop. If Saporta wasn't there, she could at least hang around and talk to the staff. She knew most of them by now, and she could always use the excuse that she wanted to get to know how the business worked to ask them questions about what went on there.

Her phone rang when the cab was halfway there, and a glance at her phone showed Saporta's name.

"Gabe, I was just on my way to the club."

"Can you change direction? I have an off-site meeting, and I could use your skills."

Well, think of the devil and he shall appear. "Of course," Leighton said. "Where are you?"

Saporta gave her an address she relayed to the cab driver.

The address was an innocuous looking office building, with Saporta lounging in the lobby waiting for her.

"Who are we meeting?" Leighton asked when Saporta guided her toward the elevators. None of the names on the plaques looked familiar.

"A potential supplier." Saporta pushed the up button and stepped back. "Someone who can make the expansion a little easier if he chooses." He looked at her without even the hint of a smile. "Don't make him choose not to."

*

Victoria really wasn't going to spend the whole day at Saporta's, playing housewife or whatever it was he had in mind for her. She was going to take advantage of him being gone, though. It gave her a chance to poke through the kitchen and the living room, which mostly taught her that the cooking wasn't just something he did to impress women and that he had a fondness for eighties movies.

The office it was, then. Victoria bent a second pair of paperclips out of shape and jimmied the lock again. She couldn't risk taking notes, but maybe if she spent a little time reading more carefully, she might find something she'd missed in her initial look. If nothing else, it would give her time to memorize details she could give to Mike to look into.

Half an hour later, she had enough addresses memorized that she could give Mike a good start. What she didn't have was any idea what Saporta was doing with so much property. He had to own several million dollars worth of real estate. It certainly wasn't inherited - Narcotics' file said he was the son of poor immigrants - which meant he'd made enough money to buy several million dollars worth of real estate, all without compromising his high standard of living. Some of the purchases pre-dated the club by years, which meant the club wasn't the source of all of it. The more she knew about him, the more of a mystery he was. There wasn't even anything else in the files to suggest a prior source of income. Unless the personal files were a clue. Blackmail, maybe. But how would he have gotten enough information, before the club, to blackmail anyone?

Victoria skimmed through all of the files again, with that in mind, but they remained stubbornly unhelpful and she relocked the drawer without any answers.

The exercise was enough to put her out of temper. That was the part of police work she hated: the tedious sorting through of information. She'd rather be gathering direct evidence and putting criminal assholes like Saporta behind bars.

The reminder of what she'd had to do to get that direct evidence - she was still wearing nothing but Saporta's bathrobe - was enough to propel Victoria out of the office and back to the bedroom. She tossed the paperclips into a pocket in her purse - there would be somewhere she could throw it out on the way back to her apartment - and pulled on her clothes from last night. She wasn't staying. Saporta could find her later, if that was what he wanted.

She left the bathrobe on the chair where her clothes had been, checked to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything, and made sure the door locked behind her.

The doorman smiled at her as if there were nothing unusual about her rumpled dress and lack of makeup. Maybe, in Saporta's life, there wasn't. "Have a good day, Miss Teague."

Victoria gave him a smile she didn't feel. "Thank you."

*

"Gabe!" The potential supplier wasn't anyone Leighton recognized. Dark hair slanting over his forehead, stubble, clothes far too casual for what the rent on his office had to be.

"Rob!" Saporta met him in the middle of the office with the handshake-hug thing men did. "I'd like you to meet my business partner, Elle Masters. Elle, this is Rob Hitt."

The name didn't mean anything to her. He could be new on the scene, or it could just be that no one thought he would get involved with Saporta so his files hadn't been included in the briefing for this op.

"Nice to meet you," Leighton said.

"Nice," Hitt said to Saporta. "Better than the goons you usually travel with."

Saporta took a chair without being invited. "I don't think they'd like that characterization."

Leighton followed his lead and took the other chair in front of Hitt's desk.

Hitt waved his concern away and sat behind the desk. "You know what I mean." To Leighton he said, "Gabe and I go way back. As long as I've known him, he's had sidekicks traveling along with him. No one as lovely as you, though."

Leighton kept her smile cool. "I've met some of his associates. Some of them are quite decorative."

Saporta smirked, and Hitt laughed.

"Okay, you bastard, you still find the best women. She really a business partner?"

"Contracts and everything," Saporta said.

"You're not banging her too?"

Leighton sucked in a breath to retort, but Saporta just chuckled.

"Victoria would have my head."

"Victoria? New girl?"

Saporta smiled, exactly the way someone who got to be with Victoria should smile. Leighton wanted to rip his throat out.

"New and amazing."

"Better than Bianca?"

Saporta's smile disappeared, to be replaced by a flash of anger and what seemed to be genuine unhappiness. The smile reappeared quickly enough. "Different. Bianca is in the past."

Leighton did a quick calculation: the chance of Saporta being annoyed with her was worth the chance that throwing him off-balance might cause him to reveal more than he intended. "Not quite the past. She introduced us."

Saporta held onto his smile, but the strain of it showed around the edges.

Hitt turned his attention - his real attention, not just the casual looking over of before - on Leighton. "How do you know Bianca?"

"Oh, you know how it is," Leighton said. "I met some friends of hers when I was having a spa day, they introduced me, we got to talking." She spread her hands out, encompassing the entire situation. "And the rest is history."

Hitt relaxed and dismissed her from his attention. He had to be a player with that kind of careful attention to how people got to him. Leighton would have to tread carefully, and make sure anything she tried to find out about him didn't turn up the wrong kind of red flags. Business interest she could get away with, but that would only take her so far, and the delay it would take to get files from Michael might be too long.

*

Victoria surprised herself by crying in the shower. She was tough. She'd been on tough undercover assignments before and gotten through them. She'd even slept with suspects before. It shouldn't be bothering her this much, department shrinks and their mandatory sessions - complete with warnings about what kind of aftereffects this kind of assignment could leave - be damned.

Still, there she was sobbing under the spray and wanting nothing so much as Leighton's arms around her. Fuck, Saporta was messing with her head.

It took a long time to cry herself out, and longer than that to lie on the bed with a cool washcloth over her eyes trying to make sure they weren't red enough for anyone to figure it out once she left the apartment.

Fuck, she just wanted out of this life for a little bit, and that was the very last thing she could do right now. There was a second-best option, though, and even Victoria Teague, film school graduate, could go see crappy Hollywood blockbusters if she wanted.

Just having a plan for the rest of the day was a relief, and Victoria started feeling better even as she pulled on a skirt and top that were far more casual than anything else she'd worn for this assignment - with the possible exception of Saporta's bathrobe.

Victoria Teague would never, no matter how casually dressed, go out without her makeup, but it didn't have to be particularly elaborate, nothing like the carefully constructed looks she'd been wearing to catch and hold Saporta's interest. This only had to be good enough for strangers at the movie theater.

She felt lighter, leaving the house. Knowing the extensive nature of Saporta's files, she wouldn't be at all surprised if someone was keeping tabs on her, but there was nothing suspicious about Victoria Teague going to the movies. Nothing at all.

That thought kept her going all the way into the dark theater. Then she could just relax and let her mind slip into someone else's world for a while. She didn't even have to worry about being watched; it was a movie, and any reactions she showed could be in response to it.

It didn't work out quite that way. She found herself a seat in the middle of an empty row with no one in front of her and no one behind. Just before the previews started, a chattering group of women came in and sat in front of her. Even that would have been fine, except that one of them looked familiar. It took Victoria a long moment - too long; she was really not in the right frame of mind - to realize that she was recognizing her from the files: Bianca Dueñas.

Fuck, she couldn't get away from Saporta even when she was trying to. On the bright side, there was a good chance Dueñas wouldn't know who the hell she was.

*

"Now that all that shit is out of the way, let's talk business." Hitt's friendliness took on an edge. "You want to move product through your club."

Saporta leaned back in his chair, the very picture of studied relaxation. "I do. It's a club; there's plenty of product moving through it anyway. I don't see any reason I- we," he nodded briefly at Leighton, "shouldn't get a cut of that."

"You have the infrastructure for that?"

"We have a well-trained and extremely loyal staff. You know I have plenty of experience in dealing with large sums of money."

"Yes," Hitt said, "I do."

Leighton couldn't tell if that meant Hitt knew how much money flowed through the club or if that meant he and Saporta had done business before. If they had, it was old enough - or well-hidden enough - not to be in any of the files on Saporta.

"What do I get out of the deal?"

Saporta spread his hands out. "Come on, Rob. My club is a very happening place to be right now. You get in on that action, your profits only go up."

Hitt smiled, his lip curling up a little on one side. "How do you know I'm not already in on that action?"

Saporta remained cool as a cucumber. "All of the product moving through the club already is strictly small-time, and none of it traces back to you."

Of course he knew that. Saporta knew everything that happened in that place, and Hitt was a fool if he thought otherwise.

Leighton leaned forward, letting her blouse drape a little more at the front. If Hitt was as smart as he seemed, it wouldn't affect him, but it couldn't hurt to try.

"Our clientele," she said, "is the type that likes to party. That's why they come to us. They also like to know they're getting a quality experience. That's also why they come to us. We don't just want a cut of the profits. We want to protect our brand." Hitt might not go for it, but it was part of what Saporta was doing, and it was precisely the kind of thing the dilettante uptown divorcée could get away with saying.

Hitt shook his head and dismissed her with, "You read too many marketing blogs."

So much for that gambit. Leighton sat back in her chair. "Gabe, I don't see why we're going with some guy who's going to ignore everything we say."

Saporta shrugged a little and said to Hitt, "She might read too many marketing blogs, but she's right about the club. Why let the freelancers pass cheap product when we can provide a much better experience for not too much more money?"

"You sure you're not sleeping with her?"

Fuck, Hitt was an asshole. He was also going to give her enough evidence to take him down, as soon as he and Saporta gave up posturing to talk numbers. It was too bad Leighton would have to stick with Saporta and couldn't be there to make that arrest herself.

*

Victoria relaxed a little when the movie started and did her best to lose herself in the story. She was aware, the whole time, of Dueñas and her friends in front of her. It was too easy to notice them, every time they laughed, every time Dueñas leaned over to the woman next to her to make a comment. Dueñas's group left when the credits rolled, and Victoria relaxed into her seat, feeling like she could breathe for the first time since they'd arrived.

There was a restaurant three blocks from the theater, and Victoria was hungry enough to stop there instead of going back to her apartment for lunch. Before she could ask for a table for one, one of the women from the theater walked out of the restroom. The woman smiled at her briefly, and then more genuinely.

"You were at the movies."

Victoria smiled back. "Yes."

The woman looked at her for a moment, and then said, "Come have lunch with us. We can talk about the movie." Victoria had plenty of experience being hit on, but the woman's smile and invitation seemed to be just friendly. "Come on," the woman said when Victoria hesitated, "it'll be fun. I'm Kelsey."

Victoria wanted to be alone for a while - the second-best option to being with Leighton, which she couldn't have - but Victoria Teague liked meeting new people. And having an in with Dueñas couldn't hurt.

She smiled at Kelsey. "Victoria. I'd love to."

"Great!" Kelsey walked her to where the other women were already seated around a table. "This is Victoria. She was at the movie, and she's going to join us for lunch. This is Whitney, Megan, Bianca, and Erika." Kelsey pointed to each woman in turn.

"That'll be on the final," Whitney drawled.

"Stop it," Kelsey said to her. Then, to Victoria, "Don't listen to her."

Victoria took the chair next to Kelsey and smiled at the waiter who promptly brought her a glass of water and a menu. "What's good here?"

"Everything I had last time was good." Dueñas' statement caused the whole group to look at her. "Stephanie said it was good, so Antonio and I came for dinner on his night off."

"Antonio," Whitney explained, "is the hot bartender Bianca's dating."

"He's a good guy." Dueñas' protest was mild, especially as she followed it up with, "He's also very hot."

Victoria laughed, the way she was meant to. Maybe having contact with Dueñas wasn't going to be as useful as she'd thought.

"What about you, Victoria?" Whitney asked. "Hot bartender waiting for you at home?"

Victoria thought for a moment about what was waiting for her at home when they were done with this - Leighton, Gizmo, their life together - before she wrenched her mind back to the case and the situation at hand. "Not quite at that stage of things, but, yeah, there's a guy."

"Serious?" The question came from Dueñas.

Victoria see-sawed her hand in the air. "Spending the night serious, but I like to have fun. Don't know that I want something too much more serious than that right now."

*

Saporta laughed. "Come on, man. You'll have to meet Victoria. Come to the club one of these days."

Hitt raised his eyebrows. "That good?"

"Yeah," Saporta leaned forward, "she is. I'm not fucking anyone else, and Elle has a point. My club is a place people come to have fun. I want to provide them with everything they need to do that."

"And you want a cut of the profits."

And that was the business talk. They probably weren't done with all the posturing, but that was as good as an agreement to do business with them.

Saporta sat back in his chair. "Of course." He smiled, generous now that they were getting their way. "A reasonable cut."

"Reasonable," Hitt repeated. "And what do you think is reasonable?"

"You have to understand," Saporta said, "I have employees. They're going to get a cut of my cut, and anyone involved in moving the product directly is going to want a raise, which they'll deserve, to cover the risk involved. We're a pretty big club. We have a lot of employees."

Leighton didn't know if he'd done it on purpose, but that shift to "we" was clever. If his strategy was based on who else was going to get a cut, it was a good idea to remind Hitt that Leighton was getting her cut too, and Saporta would have to do that reminding. Hitt hadn't looked at Leighton again, and she knew guys like him. He wasn't going to look at her. In his mind, she didn't have any power and he didn't have to bother with her.

"And I have a lot of costs," Hitt said. "Running product through your club, with so many people involved, opens me up to new risks too."

"You really have to come in one of these days," Saporta said. "You can see how my club works, and meet the cops who come there to party."

Leighton glanced at Saporta, no more than was appropriate for Elle Masters hearing that for the first time. Either he knew that Butcher was a cop, or there were other cops hanging around the club. Or both. Leighton was willing to bet on both. That would help explain why the place hadn't been shut down yet, and why Saporta didn't seem too worried about the possibility.

Hitt actually laughed. "You always did like to take risks."

"Calculated risks."

"But risks nonetheless. So tell me, how much product are you looking to move?"

And that was it, that was Hitt as good as agreeing to do it. Leighton's eyewitness testimony on its own wouldn't be enough to convict them, but as soon as the deal went through, getting hard evidence would be easy enough, and then she could get the hell out of this cover and back to Victoria.

Smiling at Hitt and Saporta as they haggled over details was the easiest thing in the world.

*

"Trauma, or choice?" Erika asked.

"Oh, choice," Victoria said easily. "I just moved to New York. I don't want to give up my options too quickly." She smiled, letting it turn wicked at the edges. "I hear there are plenty of options here."

The other women laughed, and Whitney said, "Of every variety."

No one else seemed to find anything out of place in that - they kept on with bantering about what kind of options there were, complete with teasing Dueñas about having taken away the hot bartender option - but Victoria would give even odds that it had been a come-on. A very, very subtle one, but one nonetheless. It was too bad Whitney probably didn't have anything to do with their case; she could have used that.

The other women had the comfortable familiarity with each other that made Victoria acutely miss her own life. She didn't have that with anyone in Victoria Teague's life, and even though the women drew her into their conversation, she couldn't really have it. She would always be lying to them. It didn't stop her from participating, telling them Victoria Teague's backstory as easily as if it were her own and accepting their suggestions for dates she should get her guy - or any other option she chose to exercise - to take her on.

They were generous with their attention and advice in the way of women who were used to making friends, enough so that Victoria found herself genuinely enjoying herself, right up until the moment her phone rang and she pulled it out to see Saporta's name on the screen.

"You don't sound like you're at home waiting for me," Saporta said as soon as she'd greeted him.

"Nope," she agreed with cheer helped along by the other women's curious regard. "I went to the movies and met some people. We're having drinks and a late lunch." She looked over the table and amended it to, "But mostly drinks," drawing a laugh from the other women.

"Sounds like you're having a good time. Think I can come get you and show you an even better time?"

Victoria smiled, knowing exactly how to smile so the other women would know she was talking to a guy she was interested in. "I guess you could do that."

"Tell me where you are." Only after Victoria had given him the name and location did he say, "Elle's with me. I hope that's okay."

In truth, that was more than okay. Victoria was unsettled enough that just seeing Leighton might help. But she wasn't supposed to like Elle, so she made a face and said, "Fine."

Saporta's voice dropped. "Come on, Vicky-T, you know there's no one else for me."

Victoria sniffed. "That's what you say now."

"You're a tough woman," Saporta said. "I'll be there in twenty to show you how much I like that."

That, she judged, was enough to put a smile back on Victoria Teague's face. "I'll be waiting."

*

"Victoria?"

"Victoria." Saporta grinned. "She made some friends and they're drinking." He stepped out into the street and hailed a cab. "We deserve a celebration." He held the door and let Leighton get into the cab before he went around to the other side.

Saporta spent most of the drive on the phone, making arrangements with Blackinton and Suarez. Leighton guessed it would be less than a week before the drugs started flowing through the club, a few more days until she could get a cut of it. Two weeks, tops, and she could stop being Elle Masters and get Victoria back.

The restaurant could have been any place in New York, but the first thing Leighton saw when she went through the door was the table full of women at the back. Victoria was farthest from the door, and her face lit up when Leighton and Saporta came in. It was such a relief to see her that Leighton was halfway across the restaurant before she realized who Victoria was with.

It hadn't taken Dueñas or the other women that long to make the connection. Leighton couldn't see Saporta, only the table full of women, but that was enough to give her an idea about his reaction. Victoria's smile dimmed, and Dueñas's disappeared. The other women ranged from frankly curious - Whitney - to uncomfortable - Megan.

Saporta split away from her when they reached the table and went around it to bend down over Victoria and take her mouth in a kiss that made it clear that he considered her to be his. It set Leighton's teeth on edge, but she kept her smile open and friendly, even as she glanced to the side to see what Dueñas thought of it. She was struggling even more than Leighton was to keep her friendly demeanor.

"So," Whitney drawled, "your guy is Gabe Saporta."

"It is." Victoria had slipped her hand into Gabe's, and she was doing an excellent job of pretending not to know there was any connection between Gabe and the women she was drinking with. Even Leighton almost believed it. "How do you know him?"

There was a pause where everyone waited for someone to answer her. In the end, it was Saporta who said, "Bianca's my ex."

Victoria winced. "Oh my God, and here I spent all this time telling you about this guy I'm seeing."

"It's fine," Dueñas said with a graciousness that was only somewhat belied by the expression on her face. "You didn't know, and we've both moved on. Elle, I see that introduction worked out for you."

"Bianca introduced me to Gabe," Leighton said to Victoria. Victoria did a creditable job at a slightly annoyed smile.

"And now you've met Bianca too." Saporta hugged Victoria to his side. "The two of you coming into my life must have been fate."

Leighton caught the disgusted look on Whitney's face, but Saporta was looking at Victoria and missed it. It meant he also missed the hurt that passed over Dueñas's face and disappeared just as quickly.

*

No matter what Dueñas and Saporta said, things weren't fine. Dueñas's friends were clearly on her side, which meant Victoria probably wasn't going to see them again. In some ways, that was a relief. Victoria had no desire to spend more time than necessary rubbing in the fact that she had Saporta when Dueñas didn't. With strangers at the club, sure, but not with a woman who was still in love with him and who didn't seem to be connected to the business. On the other hand, the women clearly knew Leighton, and continuing to be friends with them might have given her more chances to see Leighton.

Victoria smiled up at Saporta. "It must have been." As long as he believed it was nothing more than that, they would be okay. It helped that Victoria running into Dueñas was actually a coincidence, useful though it was.

"Ladies," Saporta said to the group at large, "you're all as beautiful as ever." Victoria was still looking at him, so she saw the way his gaze hung on, then skipped away from Dueñas. Maybe Dueñas wasn't the only one still in love. Whatever their differences were, they were going to be the least of their problems soon enough.

"And you're as charming as ever," Whitney said, her tone making it clear just what she thought of his charm.

"That charm," Leighton said mildly, "is going to make me a lot of money. Where on earth is your waiter? I was promised celebratory drinks."

The waiter appeared as if summoned by her wish to add two chairs to the table and take drink orders.

"You have to try this," Megan said, pushing one of the appetizer plates at Leighton. "It's amazing. Stephanie was so right about this place."

Only someone completely brainless could have missed the tension at the table, which meant Megan was the peacemaker of the group. She'd pushed it at Leighton, though, which meant she was also firmly on Dueñas's side, not that Victoria expected anything else.

Dueñas pushed a different plate in Gabe's direction. "This one's vegetarian."

"Thank you." Saporta's voice softened when he spoke to her. Dueñas wasn't the only one who hadn't quite let go of that relationship.

"I had some earlier," Victoria said, drawing Saporta's attention back to her. "It's good."

In addition to his attention, it put Saporta's usual smile back on his face. "Well, if it's Victoria approved."

Victoria grinned at him. "This place is amazing." She leaned into his side, not hard when the shuffling to add him and Leighton to the table had put them so close together. "We should come back."

She only caught the way Saporta's eyes flickered toward Dueñas because she was watching for it. "We'll have to do that sometime."

Victoria put her hand on his thigh. Victoria Teague might still need to demonstrate her claim, but she wasn't so thoughtless as to kiss him in front of Dueñas, not when she knew something about their history.

*

The appetizers were delicious, but not enough to keep Leighton from watching the rest of the table. While Victoria navigated Saporta and Dueñas, with Megan keeping an anxious eye on them, Whitney, Erika, and Kelsey were talking about other places Stephanie had recommended.

"I can see," Leighton said after one particularly enticing description, "that Stephanie's really the one to know."

Erika laughed. "The rest of us have our skills, but if you're into food, then, yeah, Stephanie's your girl."

The waiter interrupted their conversation by bringing a round of drinks. Leighton was on her first, but from the glasses already crowding the table, she was the only one.

"Too bad Bianca's the only one whose skills include attracting cute members of the food service industry," Kelsey said. "That waiter."

Erika and Whitney both turned to watch him walk away. Leighton looked at Dueñas first, and caught her wince. A safe bet, then, that Saporta didn't know about Antonio the bartender.

"Cute members of the food service industry?" Saporta asked. It drew the attention of the whole table. There was a moment where no one spoke.

Whitney was the one to break the silence. "Bianca's new boyfriend," she said. "Also known as Antonio the hot bartender."

Saporta was still cuddled up to Victoria, but his attention was all for Dueñas. "Bartender. I thought you didn't want to be involved with anyone with a club life."

"He works in a tapas bar," Dueñas snapped. "Hardly the same thing."

"No," Saporta said, his mouth twisting into something unpleasant enough that Leighton started to wonder how deep his criminal enterprises went. People had ordered hits for less. "I suppose not."

Saporta seemed to catch himself, or else Victoria had done something under the table to catch his attention, because his face slid back into his usual practiced geniality, and he turned to Victoria.

"I am still in the club life," Saporta was talking only to Victoria, but loud enough for it to carry across the table, "which means I have some time now, but I'll be busy later." His voice dropped, but still not enough for it to be a truly private conversation. "And I am disappointed you didn't just wait for me. I was looking forward to that."

Leighton could admit that, objectively, Victoria did a good job of looking absolutely besotted. It didn't do anything to lessen her wish to punch Saporta's face in, or to grab Victoria away from him and show him who Victoria really belonged to.

Victoria tossed back the rest of her drink. "I wouldn't want to waste your free time." She reached for her purse, but was stopped by Saporta's hand closing over hers when she started to open it.

"This one's on me." He took out his wallet and tossed a few bills on the table, far more than they needed to cover his and Victoria's share of the bill. "Ladies, I hope you'll forgive me for stealing Victoria away. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon."

For her part, Victoria said, "It was so nice to meet you all," before she took Saporta's hand and left with him.

*

Saporta's grip was just a little too tight, nothing Victoria couldn't handle, but not exactly comfortable either. "Gabe." She pried at his fingers until he loosened it and looked down at her with a rueful smile.

"Sorry." He bent down and kissed her slowly, taking his time exploring her mouth. Even as unhappy as she was with the situation, it was enough to leave her breathless. Seduction was definitely a part of his skill set. "Sorry," he said again. "It's been a while since I last saw Bianca, and her friends don't like me much."

Victoria shook her head. "I can't believe that was your ex."

Saporta let go of her hand altogether to step out into the street and hail a cab that he helped her into. Once he was in, she slid across the seat to lean against his side with her head on his shoulder. Victoria Teague staking her claim, even though there was no one to watch them now.

"I just wanted to go to the movies."

Saporta linked their hands together. "That's the thing about this town. You think it's impossibly big, and then things like this happen." He kissed the top of her head, but his voice got fainter at the end of the sentence, and when she looked up, he was looking out the window as if he were seeing something else entirely.

It was a bad sign. They needed to wrap this case up before Saporta decided he was done with his rebound - or done with trying to rebound at all - and dumped her. Victoria knew she was good at attracting - and keeping - male attention, but even she wasn't a match for the way Saporta seemed to still feel about Dueñas. If he dumped her, she would be out, and as much of a relief as it would be to get out from under this case, she wasn't going to leave Leighton behind.

"What were you doing while I was proving this is just a small town?"

"Business meeting."

"Did it go well?" Victoria kept her head down, looking at their hands. Better if Saporta didn't pick up on just how interested she was.

"Well enough." After a moment, he sighed and said, stronger, "Really well, actually. I took Elle with me. She was good."

Victoria made herself stiffen. As much as she wanted to know everything about what Leighton was up to, Victoria Teague didn't like her.

Saporta huffed. "I don't know how many times either of us has to tell you this. I'm not interested. She's not interested." Saporta tipped Victoria's chin up so she was looking at him. "I'm interested in you. She's interested in the money and excitement the club can bring her."

Those were both lies. Saporta might be interested in her, but not as anything compared to what he'd had with Dueñas, and Leighton was interested in evidence. Victoria couldn't call him on it, not without blowing her cover.

*

"Are you all right?" Megan asked Dueñas in the wake of Saporta and Victoria's departure.

"Yeah." Dueñas smiled at the table, but it didn't go all the way to her eyes. "I'm fine. We're over."

"There's over," Whitney snapped, "and then there's watching your ex fawn over someone else right in front of you."

It was so miscalculated - too strong, too much of a reminder - that she had to have said it without thinking it through. Dueñas's smile wavered, but she didn't crumple.

"Eat up everyone." Megan pushed the appetizer plates toward the rest of the group. "You're going to need it to absorb all the alcohol we're about to drink." She followed it up by flagging down the waiter and ordering a couple of bottles of wine.

Leighton took the plates when they came her way, but left her glass of wine mostly untouched. As much fun as getting drunk sounded, Dueñas was still in love with Saporta, and she couldn't risk letting her guard down.

"We're over," Dueñas said two glasses of wine and twenty minutes later. "It shouldn't matter that he has some girl who's okay with just partying."

"Love doesn't work like that," Kelsey said. "When you love someone, you love them, and it doesn't matter if you're supposed to be apart now, you still love them." There was a story there, and maybe something in her use of non-gender specific pronouns.

"I left him," Dueñas said. She held out her glass, and Erika, who had the bottle at the moment, refilled it. "Shouldn't that make a difference?"

"No, honey," Megan said, her voice soft, "because you didn't leave him because you didn't love him anymore."

Leighton saw it coming, so she already had a package of Kleenex out of her purse ready to hand over when Dueñas started crying. Saporta was charming and successful as far as his business went, but it was hard to believe he'd inspired this kind of love. Still, Leighton could understand it. She'd be just as much of a wreck if anything happened that meant she couldn't be with Victoria. It was only the fact that she knew it was temporary, that they were doing it for a purpose, that was keeping her from falling apart now. It was going to hurt Dueñas when they put Saporta away, but Leighton was ready for it. The end of this job meant she could have Victoria back where she belonged, with her.

"Drink more." Kelsey pushed Dueñas's glass toward her. "It's the best thing for a broken heart."

Dueñas laughed a little through her tears. "I think I've drunk more since we broke up than I did the whole time we were together." Her face crumpled again. "And Gabe likes to party."

On either side of her, Kelsey and Megan moved in to put their arms around her. At least Dueñas would have them when Saporta was rotting away in prison where he belonged.

*

Seeing Dueñas rattled Saporta more than he admitted, or else there was something going on with the business he and Leighton had done together. Victoria was pretty sure it was Dueñas, though, because while he was distracted with her - nothing anyone would have noticed unless they were looking very, very carefully - he was still right on top of everything at the club. The distraction worked in her favor; he didn't notice at all when she slipped out on Monday for her weekly meeting with Mike.

"I hate this," she said as soon as she was in the apartment Mike was still supposedly crashing in and he'd let her know it was safe to talk freely. "I hate this case, I hate Saporta, I hate being Victoria Teague." She stalked a circle around the living room as she spoke.

"We can pull you out." Mike shrugged and sat on the couch. "Make up some family emergency and send Victoria Teague back to L.A. or something."

Victoria took a deep breath and sat down next to him. "No," she said. "No, I'm good to see this through. But remind me of this next time I'm bored with our caseload."

Mike laughed. "Yeah, right. You'll never believe me."

Victoria put the heels of her hands over her eyes and pressed in, blocking everything out for a few seconds. "Yeah," she said, "I think I will this time." She pulled her hands away and smiled at him, trying to show him he was okay even though he knew her well enough to read whatever she wasn't saying. "Saporta's still not letting me in on his business stuff, but I got a look through the files in his apartment. He has files on everyone who works for him. He also owns a bunch of other property. If you get me some paper, I'll write the addresses down for you."

Mike found something for her, and she wrote down everything she could remember from Saporta's files. "I think there's one or two more I'm forgetting. If I can get in again, I'll get them for you."

Mike took the list and skimmed down it. "This is a good start." Then he frowned.

"What?"

"One of these," he said, tapping the paper. "It looks familiar, but I don't know if it's something connected to this case." He shrugged. "We'll check them out, see what we can find."

Victoria sighed and tipped her head onto the back of the couch. "Probably nothing. I'm going to be his trophy girlfriend forever."

Mike nudged her with his elbow. "Leighton's too good for that."

Victoria sat up. "Are you trying to impugn my detecting abilities? That's not going to make me like this case anymore."

Mike grinned at her. "Nah, but it might get you out of your funk. You want to write a note for her?"

"God, yes."

*

"We're finally getting somewhere," Leighton said when she met with Michael. "Saporta and I had a meeting with a supplier, Rob Hitt. He's agreed to move product through the club. All we have to do is wait for it to happen, and we can get Saporta."

"Hitt," Michael repeated. "He's not in our files."

"No, he's not, but he seems to be big enough that he might be in Narcotics' files somewhere. He and Saporta 'go way back' - Hitt's words." Leighton settled back into her chair. "As soon as product starts moving, we can arrange to take them down."

"Good." Michael handed her a sheet of paper covered in Victoria's handwriting. "Victoria got a list of some buildings Saporta owns. Notice anything?"

Leighton skimmed down the list until something caught her eye. "Strenge's building?"

Michael nodded. "It could be that she just ended up there because of the personal connection."

"Or she could be laundering some of the club's profits. The jewelry is overpriced. Saporta and his operation pay too much for it, the excess comes back clean through the rent."

"And she makes money on the side from any legit sales." Michael took the list back. "Probably can't prove it without subpoenaing her financial records, but if we're careful, we might be able to coordinate it so she doesn't destroy any of it before we can get to it."

The club was the first priority. It would be a close thing to get the club and Strenge in short succession. "If we move in on a Friday or Saturday night, might be able to get everyone in the initial net and keep her off the streets long enough to get to her records." Finally. _Finally_ , they were getting somewhere. Neither Saporta nor Hitt would want to wait, which meant she didn't have to wait. The sooner she could get Victoria out of there the better.

"Did Mike say how Victoria's holding up?"

Michael hesitated, just long enough that she knew it wasn't good. "He's worried, but she's hanging in there."

If Mike was worried, Leighton needed to be too.

"I have a note for you."

It wasn't much. Just "Love you" with a heart and a V. It wasn't enough, and the heart was shaky around the edges.

Michael gave her a sheet of paper and a pen without her having to ask for them. She couldn't say much, not in a note that might get intercepted even if none of the others had.  


> My darling V,
> 
> We're so close. I miss you. I love you. Soon.
> 
> -L

  
It didn't even come close to all the things she wanted to say, but it made the promise she was determined to keep. Victoria wouldn't have to be Saporta's girl for much longer, and after the trial, she would never have to see him again.

Leighton folded her note, ran her fingers over Victoria's words again, and handed both of them back to Michael.

*

"You're ignoring me again," Victoria said when she pushed open the door to Saporta's office.

"Never." Saporta got up and crossed the room to take her mouth in what would have been a very satisfying kiss if she were actually in love with him.

Victoria pulled away and pressed her lips together to even out her lipstick from where he'd no doubt smeared it. "You are. I've barely seen you all week."

"Now, Vicky-T, don't be like that." Saporta ran his fingers through her hair. "I've been working out boring business details. It's almost settled now."

Victoria stepped away and walked around him to sit on the edge of his desk, taking in the papers spread across it with a glance. Calculations of some sort. Victoria put her hands on top of them and leaned back, inviting Saporta closer. "How settled?"

Saporta took the bait and stepped between her legs. "Not settled enough for what you're suggesting. I thought you weren't that kind of girl."

Victoria rubbed one of her heels up the back of his leg. "Not the kind of girl to let you have me in your office the first time," she murmured. He swayed toward her just the way she knew he would. She was good at this, and he was predictable. "I am the kind of girl to spice things up."

"Victoria Teague, you continually surprise me." There was true regret in Saporta's eyes. "This will all be settled by Friday night, and then you can spice up anything you want."

Victoria turned away from his kiss and pushed him away so she could stand. "It better be. I'm not the kind of girl to wait around for you."

Saporta reeled her in with an arm around her waist. "So you've said." He dipped down and kissed her, full of promise. "Come to the club on Friday night. Everything will be settled. It'll be a good night."

"Fine." Victoria let herself be placated. "But you'd better have time for me on Friday."

"All the time in the world." Saporta walked her to the door. He kissed her again, a good-bye kiss this time, and opened the door to let her through. He probably hoped the kiss would keep her from noticing the way he'd dismissed her. There was a good chance he wasn't even thinking about her anymore.

It didn't matter. He'd said Friday. If she had any luck at all, whatever they were doing on Friday fit with the business he and Leighton had done, and that had to be good for the case. Good for her, too, because just the thought of Leighton blindsided her with a surge of longing. She smiled at Saporta's employees on the way out, even though she didn't want to. She wanted to go home, to Leighton and Gizmo and sex that wasn't part of a cover story.

It took an effort to walk at a normal pace to the subway when all she wanted to do was get away from the club.

*

Leighton let herself sleep late on Friday. The first night of Saporta moving product through the club was going to require a lot of energy, both to stay alert enough to gather whatever evidence she could and to keep up with the party Saporta was sure to make out of it.

She found herself restless all day, rattling around Elle Masters' empty apartment and unable to settle on any one thing. They were so close. So close to taking Saporta and his whole operation down. So close to getting Victoria back.

Leighton gave up trying to stay away around seven, and left the apartment for a quick dinner before she headed over to the club. It was early, and things wouldn't get going for a while, but it was an important night, and Saporta wouldn't think it was strange if she wanted to be there from the beginning.

In fact, what he said, when she arrived to a club that had just a few early partygoers scattered throughout the room, was, "Big night."

Leighton grinned back at him. He had to be excited about it too if he was out on the floor instead of in his office or out with Victoria somewhere. "That it is." She leaned over the bar to get the bartender's attention. "Two shots of Stoli."

"Starting out strong," Saporta said.

"One of them's for you." Leighton took the shots from the bartender and gave one to Saporta. "To expansion."

"And partnership." Saporta touched his glass to hers, the sound of it ringing in the sparsely filled room.

"Partnership," Leighton murmured before tossing her shot back. She wouldn't drink much more - she had to pay attention, and her testimony had to be admissible and above suspicion - but a shot with Saporta was a good way to give him the impression that she was partying all night.

Saporta leaned his elbows on the bar and looked out over the room like a cartoon king surveying the land from his tower. "Partying's already starting." He nodded across the room.

Leighton followed his gaze to see one of the croupiers pass a small plastic bag to a customer. It wasn't quite as smooth as the average dealer on a street corner.

"They'll get better with practice," Saporta said. "But it's not a bad advertisement tonight."

"Mmm, I suppose." Leighton gestured at the bartender to bring her a Manhattan. "The clientele has to know somehow."

Saporta quirked a grin at her. "I put out the word to some people I know and had the staff do the same." He gestured at the club. "This is going to take this place to the next level."

It would take them to a different level all right, just not the one he was thinking of. Leighton took her glass from the bartender and sipped at it, just enough that Saporta would remember her drinking from it.

*

The club was in full swing by the time Victoria got there. She followed half a dozen others down the steps - partiers who eyed her with questions on their faces when Novarro waved her in without making her pay - and into a club as packed as she'd ever seen it. Whatever Saporta had put in place was certainly bringing in business.

His height made Saporta easy to find, even in a packed club, and Victoria made her way through the crowd to where he was standing with Leighton, Blackinton, Suarez, and Strenge.

"Victoria!" Saporta wrapped her up in a fierce hug with a solid kiss to go with it. "You just made a great night even better." Saporta kept one arm around tight around her.

Victoria looked around the circle, but even Leighton didn't give away anything she could use. "Everything settled?"

"More than, and business has never been better. Tonight, Vicky-T, is a night for celebration." Saporta frowned at her for a second. "You need a drink."

"I need a refill," Leighton said. "I'll get it. Vodka and Red Bull like Gabe?"

Victoria made a face. "He hasn't gotten me to try that yet. Rum and Coke."

Leighton nodded. "Anyone else?"

The others declined, and Leighton left them for the bar.

"I'm glad you're being nice to her," Saporta said quietly enough that he wouldn't be heard by anyone but Victoria. "You'll like her if you give her a chance, and if things keep going as well as they have tonight, she's going to be around for a while."

Victoria scrunched up her nose for a moment before smoothing it out and smiling at him. "Fine," she said. "I will make friends with your gorgeous, single business partner."

Saporta tapped her on the nose. "That's my girl."

Victoria leaned into him and looked out over the crowd. The club was as busy as she'd ever seen it. "What'd you do to drum up this much business?"

Saporta looked positively smug. "Negotiated a deal that has us in charge of party favors."

Party favors. Party favors and Leighton involved in the deal meant it wouldn't be long before they had enough evidence to put him away. Victoria smiled brightly at Leighton when she came back with drinks.

"Thank you." Victoria sipped at her drink. "You were involved in all this?" She waved at the club.

Leighton smiled, the corners of her eyes turning up. "I finally got a chance to be a not-so-silent partner in this business, although the planning and contacts were all Gabe's."

"You did a good job." Victoria smirked a little. "And it's making Gabe happy." She leaned harder against Saporta, feeling his arm tighten around her in response. Victoria Teague would get along with Elle Masters, but she was still going to make it clear who Saporta belonged to. The contact with another body helped, a little, with the urge to throw herself back into Leighton's arms. Not long, she reminded herself, not if Leighton was involved in the deal.

*

Leighton smiled back at Victoria, projecting only friendliness. Elle Masters wasn't interested in Saporta as anything other than a business partner, and Leighton couldn't let anything of her own feelings for Victoria show. If Mike was worried about her, Leighton had to be, but even knowing Victoria as well as she did, she couldn't see past the party girl mask to see how bad things really were.

Leighton stepped closer, getting into Victoria's space and cutting through the circle of people. "Want to make him really happy?" Leighton flicked a glance up at Saporta. "Come dance with me. He liked it last time."

Victoria turned in toward Saporta.

"Go on," he said with a grin. The kiss he laid on Victoria's lips was one of casual possession. "That sounds like fun to watch."

Victoria rolled her eyes. "You're such a cliche." She returned Saporta's kiss with one of her own before giving him her drink and taking Leighton's hand to lead her onto the dance floor.

Leighton shoved her drink into Blackinton's hand as Victoria pulled her away from them. The point was for Saporta to see them, so they couldn't melt into the crowd and have a moment for themselves. Victoria stopped them just at the edge of the dance floor, where people might pass between them and Saporta, but they would be under his watchful eye most of the time, and they could never be too careful in the club about who might be listening.

"Come on," Leighton laughed when Victoria held herself a little stiffly - playing her role, Leighton thought, hoped. "This is supposed to be fun."

Victoria moved closer, her mouth softening into a smile. "Better than listening to all of you talk business."

Leighton laughed and put her hands at Victoria's waist, on the sides of her body where the touch wouldn't be so intimate as to draw Saporta's attention. "Tonight's not much of a business evening. This is just a party." She glanced over to make sure Saporta was watching and found the whole group of them had shifted so all three of the men could see them. "I think we're the entertainment."

Victoria looked at them too, then back to Leighton with a look of fond exasperation that was so good Leighton started to doubt that Mike was right to be worried about her. "Boys." Victoria drew closer to Leighton, her body moving with more ease under Leighton's hands. "What do you say we give them a show?" Victoria's arms draped over Leighton's shoulders.

Mike wasn't wrong. That close, Leighton could feel the tension that shouldn't be there in Victoria's body. Leighton slid her hands all the way around to the small of Victoria's back. A show, but also a moment just for her and Victoria. It was the closest she'd gotten to being able to touch Victoria the way she wanted to since this whole thing started.

"Do you know what you're doing?"

Victoria smirked. "Oh, I have some idea."

*

Saporta wasn't going to let this go for very long. He might have a lot of discipline when it came to business matters, but he was going to be ready for Victoria to be a part of his party in a more participatory way in another song or two. She had to make this count. It was probably her only chance to really be near Leighton. Sure, they'd done this before, but now Victoria Teague was going along with Saporta's wish for her to get along with Elle, and that gave her a little more freedom.

She let Leighton's hands on her back draw her closer, so they were pressed together, body to body. It was so familiar, so _right_ to be that close to Leighton. Victoria had to fight not to melt into it and give herself away. It was harder, even, than dancing with Saporta. With him, she could let go and just dance, but with Leighton, she had to be careful. She had to be careful with her words, too, but that didn't mean they couldn't pass information.

"Not-so-silent partner, huh?"

She could feel more than hear Leighton's laugh. It was so familiar from nights spent dancing together that it made her ache.

"Yes. This," Leighton jerked her chin at the rest of the room, "is going to make me a very wealthy woman very soon."

Victoria's heart beat faster than the dancing, or even the proximity to Leighton, could account for. The moment Elle Masters became that very wealthy woman, Leighton would have what they needed to lock Saporta up, and then this, not dancing with Saporta, would be Victoria's life again.

"Lucky you."

"I was lucky," Leighton said. She followed it up with, "Maybe it was fate," but that didn't matter as much as the way Leighton's hands had tugged Victoria close for a second.

Victoria stopped trying to talk. It was too loud for real conversation, and they were supposed to be putting on a show for Saporta. The less she had to think about how to get information without giving them away to anyone else in the room, the more she could concentrate on what Leighton's body felt like along hers.

They got one more song before Saporta decided he didn't want to just watch. Victoria was keeping enough of an eye on him that it wasn't a surprise when he molded himself to her back, his hands sliding down her arms to cover hers.

"You don't have to go," he told Leighton when she started to pull away from them.

Leighton laughed and came back, not quite as close to Victoria as before. "Enjoying this up close?"

Saporta's lips pressed into the skin behind Victoria's ear. "Yes."

Victoria and Leighton had danced with other people before, and it had been fun. This time, Victoria felt more trapped by Saporta than anything else. But in the here and now, she couldn't give that away. She took one arm from around Leighton and twisted it back around Saporta's neck instead.

*

Saporta was a typical possessive asshole. Not that Leighton blamed him; she felt the same way about Victoria herself. The difference was that Victoria actually was Leighton's in a way she wasn't his. He hadn't wanted Victoria all to himself, not yet, and Leighton gentled her hold on Victoria, making it less grasping and more comforting, trying to give Victoria something other than his touch to hold onto until they could put him away and be together.

Saporta said something to Victoria that had her tilting her head into him and pulling away from Leighton. Then she was turning, without pulling all the way away, and Leighton's hands ended up on her stomach. It was a struggle not to tighten them, or slide them lower.

Victoria and Saporta kissed, long and deep, and Leighton had to marshal every bit of her self-control not to rip Victoria away from him. It was so much worse when they were this close. When they broke apart, Saporta looked smug and satisfied.

Victoria pulled all the way out of Leighton's arms. "Sorry to cut this short," she tossed over her shoulder, "but thanks for helping me keep him entertained."

Leighton forced herself to laugh. "I don't think you need my help, but you're welcome." She turned a little to watch them walk away. They weren't going farther onto the dance floor or back to the bar.

Leighton left the dance floor for the bar. Blackinton held out a bottle of water as she reached him.

"Thanks." Leighton gulped down half of it in one go.

"You owe me one," Blackinton said. "Something stronger than that." He made a face at Suarez. "Gabe and that desk."

Suarez half laughed and half grimaced. "Don't remind me."

"Do I want to know?"

Blackinton and Suarez both shook their heads, as in sync as if they'd been one person.

"You really don't," Suarez said.

"And you really don't want to go back to Gabe's office until sometime after they come back out here," Blackinton added.

Leighton went cold and hoped it didn't show on her face. She'd known what Victoria was doing with Saporta, but this made it real in a way that just knowing hadn't. She covered for it by drinking the rest of her water. "I'll just have to stay out here with you then."

Strenge joined the men in nodding. "Probably for the best."

"You looked like you were having fun out there," Blackinton said with half a leer. "Want to give it another go with a new partner?"

Leighton squinted up at him. "You're a little tall for me."

Blackinton clutched at his chest. "You wound me, truly."

Leighton laughed, because she was supposed to. "If you think you can keep from stepping on me, I think I can handle it."

"I accept your challenge." Blackinton extended his hand to her with a flourish.

Leighton took it with significantly less drama. Dancing with someone else she could do. She wouldn't have to watch what she was saying, and maybe she could lose herself enough in it to forget what Victoria was doing.

*

Victoria spent the weekend with Saporta. They went back to the club on Saturday night - Leighton was there, but moving around and chatting up clubgoers and didn't stop to chat for long - but Saporta kept her close for the rest of the weekend. Victoria tried to tell herself that if he was with her, at least he wasn't out making more deals, but it didn't make her any happier about it. Saporta didn't know her - the real her - well enough to tell that she was keeping that from him.

She finally got away from him on Monday morning. "Even party girls have things they need to do," she said, laughing. "And I'm sure you need to check in on the club."

Saporta squeezed her close. "I do need to check in. It was a good weekend, but I should find out how good." He kissed her cheek. "Promise me we can have dinner, though."

"I promise." Victoria kissed him, letting it linger and drag on. "Call me later," she said when they were finally done and she was gently pushing him out the door.

A shower was her first order of business, and cleaning up. This time, it had been long enough since she'd done laundry that it wouldn't be strange for her to drag the sheets down to the basement and into a washing machine. She probably wasn't lucky enough for that to be the last night she had to spend with Saporta, but they were getting close.

Doing laundry, straightening up the apartment, and a trip to the grocery store took up enough of her day that she didn't have too much time to think before she went to meet Mike.

"Saporta's distributing 'party favors,'" Victoria said as soon as it was safe to talk. "Please tell me we're close to taking him down."

Mike's nod was the best thing she'd seen in ages. "Very." He waved her onto a couch. "Leighton's in on the deal. Michael will talk to her later, but right now our plan is to take him down as soon as she gets the money from him. It'll be at the club, on a party night. We'll need you to keep an eye on the place, too. You have a different kind of mobility than she does, and we'll need both of you to keep an eye out and call it off if he seems suspicious."

It was a good thing he'd had her sit down; her knees went weak enough that she wasn't sure they'd have held her up. "Jesus fuck, _finally_."

Mike sat down near her, but without touching her. "It'll take a few hours to a day to finalize once we know we can do it. Leighton's going to be in contact with us. Follow her lead."

Victoria smiled at him and put her hand on his arm. "Don't worry about us. We can do this."

*

Working out details with Michael made the whole thing real. They were really going to do this. Sometime soon, provided nothing happened to spook Saporta, the whole operation would be over and Leighton would get Victoria back.

Michael didn't give her the note until after she had the plan - and the backup plan - memorized. The advantage to his life coach cover was that she could keep in contact with him. It wasn't something she'd used so far, but the success of the club would give her a good reason: now that she was successful at this, Elle Masters would be looking for the next challenge to take on.  


> L-
> 
> I love you, every moment with everything.
> 
> Yours,  
> V

  
The writing was smooth and easy, no hesitation in Victoria's letters across the page. Leighton breathed a little easier to see it. Victoria still had to be with him, but she was hanging in there.

"What did Mike say?"

"That she's doing better."

That made sense. Victoria had to know the end was coming, and that would make it easier. It was making it easier for Leighton.

Michael had been sitting there, watching her, for a moment too long. "What?"

Michael shook his head. "You know," he said. "This is going to take a toll, even after you're done."

Leighton looked away from his gentle understanding. "I know." It was the part she kept trying not to think about. Even when she got Victoria back, things wouldn't be the same. Couldn't be the same.

"Give me some paper." Leighton had to clear her throat before she could continue. "If things go well, we won't be undercover long enough for her to get this one."

Michael handed over paper and a pen and squeezed her shoulder before retreating to the other side of the room to let her write her note in privacy. There wasn't much she could write, nothing more than she'd said already. Saporta seemed to trust them both, but they still had to be careful just in case they were still being watched. There couldn't be anything that would make anyone suspicious. Leighton wanted to pour her whole heart out onto the page, but she contented herself with:  


> V-
> 
> Every part of me is waiting for you. My love is yours, always and forever.
> 
> -Your L

  
Leighton folded it carefully, smoothing her hands over the paper that was going to be in Victoria's hands in a week one way or another.

"She's strong," Michael said, breaking into her thoughts. "If anyone can tough this out and come out okay on the other side it's her."

Leighton nodded. Because Victoria would, she'd be okay. She wouldn't be the same, neither of them would, but she'd be okay. They both would. Leighton's hand shook when she had to give the note to Michael. He folded her into a light hug. It wasn't as good as Victoria, but he had Naomi. He knew something of what this was like for her.

*

Victoria spent most of her week with Saporta. Now that he had product flowing through the club, he seemed to have more time for her. They went to a truly forgettable movie and made out in the back row. He took her to a bookstore that specialized in film. They spent an afternoon on her couch watching French films, with Victoria finding she remembered more about the technicalities of film than she'd thought.

By the time Friday night rolled around, her skin was crawling with his nearness, and she realized how good he was. He knew so much about her - or about Victoria Teague, anyway - and she didn't know anything about what he liked, other than vegetarian food and business deals.

"Get out," she said with a laugh when he tried to crowd into her apartment on Friday evening. "Let me get dressed in peace." She brushed a kiss over his cheek. "I'll meet you at the club."

"All right." Saporta kissed her more deeply, groping her in the process. "But you'd better come up with a killer outfit if you're not going to let me watch."

Victoria twitched the edge of his flannel shirt. "One of us should."

"I'll have you know," he said, one of his hands palming her ass and the other sliding through her hair, trapping her between them and his body, "that I am a trendsetter." He kissed her again, demanding her response, and then let her go all at once. "Make me proud."

Victoria closed the door on him with a smirk that dropped away the moment the door was solidly between them. She was tired of it. Tired of pretending, tired of his hands on her, tired of not being able to go home to Leighton.

A shower made sense if she was setting a foundation for a killer look. It also let her scrub off the last traces of Saporta's scent and touch. For an hour or two, at least, she wouldn't have to smell like anything but herself.

Victoria Teague's closet was uninspiring. She'd been here long enough that Saporta had seen her in pretty much everything in it, and the things he hadn't were more casual, not clubwear. Maybe if she did something dramatic on top of the outfit. Lady Gaga makeup or something.

Victoria hadn't done much more than basic makeup on this op, but she was pretty sure there had been some more interesting things in the bottom of the makeup kit that the prep team had left for her.

She dug through it, looking for anything that could make a statement. Something that would make Saporta proud. Something she could push him away from with the excuse that he would mess it up. There. Metallics. Things that would stick to it, bigger than glitter. Big enough to make a splash. Big enough to keep Saporta careful with how he touched her.

*

Leighton looked around at the gathering Friday night crowd. If anything, the club was even busier than last week. Word getting around that Saporta was selling product was good for business. Leighton had actually been right about the quality experience people expected. What they were selling was much higher quality than whatever surreptitious deals had been going on under cover of a full club where no one was likely to ask too many questions.

Mike and Michael were out there somewhere with Lieutenant Beckett, coordinating every last detail, ready to come in on her signal, ready to stand down and wait if Saporta didn't, as he'd promised, have a cut for her tonight.

Leighton hadn't seen Saporta yet. She'd been mingling, making sure the clientele was having a good time, doing a shot with Blackinton and Suarez.

"Good turnout," she said to them.

"Gabe's a genius," Suarez said. "He knows how to run a popular club."

Leighton grinned at him. "No doubt about that." She turned to Blackinton. "Dance?" Then to Suarez, she said, "I'd ask you, but I don't know how Lauren would feel about that."

Suarez laughed and waved them away. "You two go. She should be here soon."

Good. That meant she'd be away from her office. Tonight, then, if Saporta would just show up and give her some money. Leighton was done. Done with being Elle Masters. Done with playing to Blackinton and Suarez. Done with Saporta having his hands on Victoria.

Blackinton bowed to her. "Lead on, my lady."

Leighton chuckled and took to the dance floor for a song and a half before Suarez wormed his way through the crowd and tapped her shoulder.

"Boss wants to see you in his office."

Leighton nodded and waved him at Blackinton. "Looks like he's all yours."

They both laughed. Blackinton reached for Suarez and dipped him before Leighton turned away, smiling and shaking her head at their antics.

After the noise of the club, the silence of Saporta's office was deafening. The man himself was behind the desk, a handful of papers and a thick envelope in front of him.

"Your cut of the last week." He held out the envelope.

Leighton took it and lifted the flap to see bills stacked almost to bursting. "Thank you." She tucked it into her purse. No receipts, no paper trail, but his fingerprints on the envelope and probably the cash inside. Her word as a cop. The records hiding away in the cabinets behind him and the desk in his apartment. He was going away for a long time.

"Thank you." Saporta smiled, utterly satisfied with himself and the world. That wouldn't last long. "I couldn't have done it without the extra capital."

Leighton shrugged. "It was a good use of my money. Probably the best investment I've ever made."

"Certainly the best I've ever been a part of." Saporta tucked the papers on the desk into a drawer, turned the key, and stood. "If you'll excuse me, I have a girl to meet. She should be here soon."

*

Heads turned when Victoria walked into the deli, and not just because she skipped Novarro and the line. Even he turned to watch. Good. It was working.

People looked up when she entered the club, and she only had to spend a moment at the door before Saporta was sweeping toward her, Leighton trailing along in his wake.

"Vicky-T," he said, cupping her bare cheek and turning the other so it caught the light, "you have outdone yourself." He kissed her carefully, so she didn't have to tell him not to screw it up.

"That is quite the makeup job you've done," Leighton said.

Saporta put his arm around Victoria's shoulder and turned to face her. "Leave my girl alone."

Leighton put her hands up. "Oh, no, I meant it as a compliment." She smiled at Victoria, not quite the real one she would have gotten outside of this job, but real enough. "I have some friends who might drop by. What does it look like up there?"

Friends. Fuck, yes. That meant Leighton had the money and they could get Saporta. Tonight. Victoria shrugged. "Busy. They'll have to look good enough to get past Nate, but if they can do that, they should be fine." No extra guards, nothing up there to show that Saporta was in any way suspicious.

Leighton smirked at her and waved a hand down her body, a hand Saporta's attention followed. "You should know by now that anyone who knows me is going to look good."

Victoria turned away from her and slipped her hand down to Saporta's ass. "You haven't even offered me a drink. I'm feeling a little left out here."

Saporta's attention shifted back to her. Just a few more hours of keeping it there, and she would be done with this whole thing. "Never that." He led her away from Leighton without even saying goodbye. Good. Things were probably moving carefully enough that he wouldn't notice anything anyway, but having her distract him couldn't hurt.

Saporta's presence cleared them a space at the bar with the same ease it always did. His arm was around her still, his hand hooked over her hip, keeping her close and caged while she leaned in and ordered her drink. He pulled her even closer when the bartender moved away to make her rum and Coke and Saporta's Red Bull and vodka.

"Still can't talk you into trying my favorite drink?"

Victoria put her arms around him. Someone else took the few inches of space that left at the bar, pressing her closer to him.

"There are a lot of things I'll put in my mouth," she told Saporta, "but that's not one of them."

Saporta's smile turned into a leer and one of his hands grabbed her ass. Just one more night. Just a few more hours, and the next time she saw him it would be across a courtroom.

"Is that right?"

Victoria smirked and took their drinks from the bartender. "You'll just have to wait and see."

*

Now that she was out in the club - and Victoria was across the room where she couldn't be a distraction - Leighton could get a better sense of how well prepared they were. Butcher was on the dance floor, and she recognized a couple of cops they sometimes borrowed from Homicide at the roulette table. That meant there were probably others scattered throughout the crowd. Good, it would be easier to calm the place if some of the erstwhile patrons remained unfazed by the raid.

"You're looking unfortunately thoughtful for a Friday night," Blackinton said. Leighton hadn't even noticed his approach, but she turned to him with a smile.

"Just appreciating the results of my investment." Leighton glanced around the club with a more proprietary smile. "Perhaps the bastard's cheating was a blessing in disguise if it got me here."

"I'd drink to that if I had a drink." Blackinton's mouth turned down at the end of the sentence into a playfully mournful frown.

Leighton laughed. "Let's take care of that." She tucked her arm through his. "Surely between the two of us, we can make it to the bar."

"It's a difficult mission." Blackinton hummed a few bars, somehow loud enough for Leighton to hear it. "But should we choose to accept it, the rewards will be immeasurable."

Blackinton kept up the mission game all the way to the bar, alternately ducking low and standing on his toes to look over and through the crowd. Leighton let him tug her along and laughed in all the right places. It was too bad he was so deeply involved in Saporta's operation. She would have liked him otherwise.

Drinks in hand, they left the bar, letting paying customers sidle up to it while they circled their way around the gaming tables. They were watching for different things. Blackinton twice nodded to some of Saporta's lower-level flunkies, who stepped in and asked someone to leave the table. For her part, Leighton was watching for people enjoying themselves. She blew on dice, suggested red or black, made sure people were having a good time.

"You let us know if there's anything we can do to make this place better," she said to one of the Homicide cops.

"I'll do that," he answered with a leer that dropped away when Blackinton put his arm around Leighton and guided her away from the table.

Leighton allowed it until they reached the next table, which gave her ample excuse to slide out of it so she could blow on dice. It was a little like what she imagined being a politician was like, without the kissing babies part.

A few more hours. That was all, and then the whole charade would be over. Everyone else around the table with her would be headed for jail - Blackinton and the croupier - or being warned, cited, and sent home - almost everyone else - and she could go back to her real life.

*

Suarez appeared at Saporta's side and leaned in to talk to him. When he stepped half a step away, Saporta put his hand on Victoria's arm.

"I have to go take care of this. I'll be right back." He closed with a kiss to her unmarked cheek.

"Care to dance?"

Victoria looked for the face that matched the voice. "Butcher, right?"

"Got it in one." Butcher smiled as easily as if he really were just a guy in a club. "Dance?"

Victoria glanced in the direction Saporta had gone, but he'd disappeared into the crowd. "Sure." She dropped her drink onto a table and went with Butcher onto the dance floor.

Victoria was careful never to get too close to Butcher - a little jealousy was Victoria Teague's style, but she didn't want to overdo it - and he stayed away from the makeup on her cheek.

"DJ's one of ours," he said when he did lean in, on the other side. "Has stuff for you."

Vague enough that anyone who'd managed to listen in wouldn't know what he was talking about.

"Good to know." Victoria looked over the room, looking for Leighton. She didn't think Butcher had met her in this guise, which left it up to her to let Leighton know.

"Hey," Butcher said. "I know you have a boyfriend, but we're dancing here."

Victoria brought her attention back to him, then followed the jerk of his chin to her left and caught sight of Leighton near the gaming tables. "Can't blame a girl for keeping an eye out for her man, especially in this kind of crowd."

"It is a bit enthusiastic." The crowd jostling them together proved his point.

It wasn't more than a minute later when Suarez appeared at Victoria's elbow. "Your presence is requested at the craps table."

Victoria threw a mildly apologetic glance at Butcher, who only shrugged in response.

Unsurprisingly, Saporta was at the craps table, laughing and chatting up the guests, encouraging them to raise their bets and getting Leighton, who was standing next to him, to blow on their dice.

"And here's my lucky charm." Saporta put an arm around Victoria when she slipped into the scant space between him and Leighton. She was pressed all along Saporta's body on one side, and there were only teasing touches of Leighton's on the other. The dealer handed Saporta the dice, and he held them out in the palm of his hand. "Blow on this, honey."

Victoria inwardly rolled her eyes, but blew nonetheless and watched as they came up seven. Saporta's grin crinkled the corners of his eyes before he captured her in a thorough, if still careful, kiss.

"That's the way you do it."

While Saporta continued to banter with the crowd, Victoria leaned toward Leighton. "DJ booth," she said, when Leighton was close enough that they wouldn't be overheard.

Leighton nodded, and Victoria turned her body and attention toward Saporta. It would be too strange if she talked to Leighton for very long, and she only had to maintain the illusion for a little while longer.

*

Leighton was waiting for it, so she caught the first unhappy movements of the crowd before anyone else did, and slipped away from the table. The wave of knowledge hadn't hit the dance floor yet, so she wove through people, like the advance guard, until she could lean over the DJ booth and take the vest, shield, and handful of zip ties the DJ handed her.

By the time she strapped on her vest, dropped the chain of her badge over her head, and turned around, the club was in chaos. The DJ didn't miss a beat, segueing into the next song with no reaction. Leighton spared a moment to hope Victoria was close behind her before she skirted the edges of the dance floor and down the short hallway to Saporta's office.

Butcher met her at the door with a nod. "Unis should be right behind me." Sure enough, a pair of uniforms pushed through the crowd into the hallway just as he finished the sentence.

Butcher had a set of lock picks he used to jimmy the door, and then they were in.

"Filing cabinets, desk, computer," Leighton said. She glanced around the room. "Photos on the walls, too, probably. Never know what's going to be useful."

Butcher nodded. "We'll get it. This is your collar. You should be out there." He jerked his chin at the rest of the club.

Leighton nodded back. "Thanks."

The chaos in the main room of the club had reached a fever pitch when Leighton made it down the hall. At a quick glance, she could see plenty of officers, vests and badges on, rounding up partygoers and controlling their attempts to push toward the door, but not Victoria or Saporta. She just had to trust that someone had gotten Saporta, and she knew Victoria could take care of herself.

One of the dealers was edging into the crowd, no doubt meaning to blend in and escape despite the uniform. Leighton caught his arm, twisted it behind him.

"You're under arrest," she said as she grabbed the other arm and pulled ties tight around his wrist.

He twisted to look at her. "But you're the boss!"

Leighton held up her shield and continued. "You have the right to remain silent."

The dealer jerked, but fell silent while she Mirandized him and handed him off to one of the unis to take outside.

The crowd was starting to realize there was nothing they could do and calming down as they figured out most of them were being cited and let go. Leighton worked her way around the dance floor toward the bar. The dealers and croupiers weren't the only people passing product, and the bartenders really would blend into the crowd if someone didn't identify them.

*

By the time Saporta realized they were being raided, Victoria had managed to get far enough away from him that the crowd separating them could seem natural rather than deliberate. Victoria breathed easier once she couldn't see him. This was it. It was all over. A few more hours of cleanup and paperwork, assuming the crowd didn't panic and make this into a total disaster, and she could go home with Leighton, scrub the lightning bolt off her cheek, and go to sleep in her own bed.

It was early enough that the crowd didn't push back when she pushed through to the DJ booth, and by the time she pushed her way back into the heart of the club, the bulk of the club's patrons were trying to reach the exit and she could let them sweep her along until she dropped out of the crowd at the roulette tables.

"There are compartments beneath the tables," she told one of the officers there. She fumbled with the catch until she could open it, revealing cocaine divided up into conveniently small pockets of plastic. "Keep them away from the tables, and get some evidence bags down here."

The officer handed her a bag, a Sharpie, and a pair of gloves before moving away to do as she said.

Victoria snapped on the gloves and bagged the evidence, dating and signing on the line. Chain of custody, and everything had to be clean to stick. There was no way she was letting Saporta and his associates get tossed on a technicality.

The officer came back with two more and a handful of evidence bags. Victoria showed the other two where to look on the tables, and they fanned out to confiscate the drugs. There were probably more in the club - a careful search would find most of it - but this would be enough to send Saporta to prison.

By the time Victoria dropped the last bag into a box one of the officers had brought down for evidence collection, the crowd was relatively calm, filing past the officer at the door without complaint, but it was the sight of Mike, wandering through the crowd to her, that really put the smile on her face.

He spared a moment for to return her quick hug before he reported in. "Saporta and a couple of his guys are in custody. We're letting most of the crowd go with citations or warnings, but we've got a lot of the employees, and we can probably get the rest later. We've got Saporta, at least, and teams took his apartment and Strenge's office and apartment. This is a solid case."

Victoria smiled what felt like her first real smile since she became Victoria Teague. "We do good work." She held up her hand for a high-five. "Have you seen Leighton?"

Mike shook his head. "Not yet. You going to find her?"

The club was under control with plenty of NYPD jackets spread across it. She could afford to let her focus shift. "Yeah." Victoria squeezed his arm. "I'll find you later."

*

Leighton handed one bartender over to a uni and pulled the other out of the crowd. She was getting good use out of her collection of zip ties. The second bartender glared at her, but wasn't stupid enough to speak, and it was easy enough to grab another uni to take custody.

Leighton grabbed a passing Sergeant. "Everything behind the bar needs to be collected. There's probably cocaine back there too."

The Sergeant nodded and radioed for more uniforms to take care of it.

Leighton left him to it, because Michael was a few feet behind him.

"Good work," Michael said even before he hugged her, quick and tight. "I heard Strenge's office held enough paperwork to keep Smith busy for weeks."

Leighton laughed. "Good." She opened her purse. "Do you have an evidence bag?"

Michael produced one from his pockets, and Leighton dropped the envelope of cash from Saporta into it. "Return on my investment." Leighton took the Sharpie Michael handed to her and scrawled her name and the date on the bag. "He's going away for a very long time."

"Keeping the streets safe." Michael stopped looking at her and nodded his chin at something behind her. "I'll take that if you want."

Leighton turned, and handed the bag to him without looking. Victoria was standing behind her. She'd seen Victoria earlier, ridiculous lightning bolt and all, but she hadn't been wearing her vest and shield before. Leighton hadn't been able to touch her before.

They were still in the middle of a raid on an underground club, one where they'd both been undercover, so there wasn't much she could do here and now. She could take Victoria's hand and return the smile Victoria was giving her.

Leighton stepped close enough to speak without being overheard. "I got your notes."

Victoria squeezed her hand before letting go. "I got yours." Then, almost inaudibly, "Love you."

Leighton's heart eased. She hadn't really thought that would change, but they'd been so far apart, even when they'd been at the same craps table earlier, and it hadn't been an easy operation for Victoria.

"Me too," Leighton murmured, leaning even closer. "So much, V." Leighton stepped back and gestured at the club. There would be time - a lifetime of time - for them to be together, and they still had a job to do. "Down to clean-up now."

Victoria nodded, shifting back to work mode just as easily. "I'm pretty sure we got all the dealers." She nodded at the bar. "Bartenders?"

"Both in custody."

"Mike says Saporta is too, and they got Strenge's office."

And there went the last of the tension Leighton was carrying. They'd done it. They'd taken down Saporta's organization.

Michael stepped in next to them, phone held up. "Just came in. They got Hitt too."

"Saporta's supplier," Leighton said in answer to Victoria's questioning look. "There's a good chance this one will go down in department history."

*

Victoria's fingers itched to touch Leighton, but she had to be content, for now, with just the one touch of their hands. There was still the rest of the club to go through and, no doubt, a mountain of paperwork to do, but for all intents and purposes it was over. She was going home with Leighton as soon as they could get out of here.

They separated again, Leighton to check on the progress of Saporta's office and Victoria to weave through the crowd with Mike to make sure they hadn't missed anyone who needed to be arrested rather than cited.

It wasn't long before a uni approached them. "Detective Asher? Lieutenant Beckett wants to see you." The uni jerked his chin upwards. "He's outside."

Victoria nodded and looked around. There didn't seem to be anyone left who wasn't just a clubgoer.

"He wants to see Detective Meester too. Is she with you?"

Victoria pointed in the direction of Saporta's office. "She's back there somewhere."

The uni headed in that direction, and Victoria left Mike writing citations. The path through the club was familiar by now, and there was a good chance this would be her last time following it. She wasn't going to miss it at all.

The chaos of the evening was easier to see in the deli, lights reflecting off the deli cases and the street beyond filled with squad cars and uniforms. Victoria passed through a handful of people in NYPD vests and jackets on her way outside.

Saporta was lined up in front of the deli with Suarez, Blackinton, and Novarro, hands cuffed behind their backs and a pair of unis keeping an eye on them. All four of them gaped at her, but Saporta was the only one to speak.

"Victoria!" That was surprise, and anger, in his voice. Saporta stepped toward her.

Victoria didn't wait for one of the unis to take care of him; she put her hand into the join of his shoulder and shoved him right back into the wall herself. It was the most incredibly satisfying part of the whole bust, and the last time she ever had to touch him.

"Victoria." This time her name was almost a plea.

"I'm sure you know you have the right to remain silent," Victoria said before he could get any farther. She turned and walked away before she could do or say anything else. She could get away with that one push, but anything more would have his lawyer crying police brutality. No technicalities.

Victoria headed toward Lieutenant Beckett where he was talking to Lieutenant McCoy and Captain Wentz halfway down the street, but she didn't get very far before a pair of voices stopped her.

Saporta's yelled, "You bitch!"

But it was Leighton's, "Victoria," that had her turning around, a smile spreading across her face while she waited for Leighton to catch up to her.

"Victoria," Leighton said, softer. Leighton's hand cupped her cheek, her fingers skirting the edges of the lightning bolt.

*

It was stupid, and petty, and Leighton didn't care. She touched her lips to Victoria's unmarked cheek, brief and soft, then to Victoria's lips for a kiss that was exactly what she'd been missing.

Victoria kissed her back, and Leighton could feel her smiling into it. Lieutenant Beckett was still waiting for them, so Leighton pulled away well before she was ready. She couldn't help glancing back to make sure Saporta had seen it, that he understood that Victoria had never been his.

He struggled out of place, only to have one of the unis push him back.

Leighton turned her back on him and followed Victoria down the street to Lieutenant Beckett.

"Detectives." The circle of Lieutenant Beckett, Lieutenant McCoy, and Captain Wentz opened up to let them in. "Good work."

"Great work," Captain Wentz said almost on top of Lieutenant Beckett's praise. "You two have done a great thing for this city."

"Can it, Pete," Lieutenant Beckett said, elbowing Captain Wentz in the side. "These are my detectives, not the press." To Leighton and Victoria he said, "But you did do a great thing for the city."

"Thank you," Leighton said for them both.

"This is why we do this," Victoria said. Probably none of the men could hear the undercurrent in her voice, but Leighton knew her better, and all she wanted to do was get them both out of there.

Lieutenant Beckett looked past them, down the street at the rest of the chaos she could still hear behind them. "You'll have to come into the precinct," he said, and Leighton knew him well enough to hear the apology in his voice. "We'll need you to sign off on everything and write up your preliminary reports before you can go home."

"Always paperwork," Victoria said. Her hand slipped into Leighton's, and Leighton squeezed it for a quick moment before letting her go. "Do you need us here, or can we go get a start on that?"

"Go," Lieutenant Beckett waved them away. "Get one of the squads to take you."

There were enough cars coming and going that it was easy enough for Leighton to commandeer one of them to take them back to the precinct. They only needed a driver, not a pair of unis, so Leighton ended up in the back with Victoria in the front next to a uni who wasn't very happy about being on chauffeur duty and sped off as soon as they were out of the car.

"Paperwork," Victoria muttered as they climbed the steps. "Not why I became a cop."

Leighton caught the door that Victoria had yanked open too hard. "Just a couple of hours of it. He has to let us out of here sometime."

"We could die of old age before then," Victoria said, but that time it was lighter, and she took the steps two at a time, leaving Leighton to follow behind and admire Victoria's thighs in the truly short skirt she was wearing.

*

They didn't die of old age. As itchy as she was to get home, with Leighton, Victoria buckled down and wrote her preliminary report. She didn't have to have all the details yet, and after an hour, she printed it out, signed it, and dropped it onto Lieutenant Beckett's desk. Mike and Michael's reports were already there, even though they'd gotten back after Leighton and Victoria.

Victoria wandered back out into the bullpen proper and perched on the edge of Leighton's desk, hoping the sight of her skirt riding up her thigh would add an extra reason for Leighton to hurry up.

"Almost done?"

Leighton's eyes caught on the hem of her skirt before making their way up to Victoria's face. "Two more paragraphs." They were usually good at keeping their relationship out of the precinct, but Leighton's hand squeezed just above Victoria's knee. "Stop distracting me."

Victoria slid off her desk. There wasn't anything to do but wait. Mike and Michael were having coffee, but she was already too wired for that. She wandered over to them anyway.

"Just because we're stuck here doesn't mean you two have to stay."

Mike shrugged. "We'll wait for you."

"Neither one of us is going to sleep for a while anyway, and Naomi doesn't expect me home."

"You're really not going to sleep if you keep mainlining caffeine."

"Not all of us have the adrenaline of being caught up in the middle of a club raid to keep us going," Mike said.

Victoria elbowed him and looked across the room. Leighton was still working. "You were there too."

"Not like you." Mike caught her elbow before she could dig it into his side again. "Too bad you didn't get to collar Saporta."

Victoria shrugged. "He's off the streets; that's what matters." She grinned. "I did get to shove him against a wall, and kiss Leighton in front of him."

Mike and Michael both laughed.

"He doesn't know what he's missing," Michael said, and that stopped all of them.

"Unfortunately," Victoria said, turning to look at Leighton again, "he does." The last thing she wanted to do was think about Saporta. Lucky for her, Leighton's printer was spitting out paper.

"Victoria," Michael said, and she turned back to him. "I'm sorry."

Victoria shrugged. "It's fine. I'm used to it by now." The smile she flashed him didn't stick very well.

She could hear Leighton's heels clicking across the floor, the rhythm of her footsteps familiar even if the shoes in particular weren't, so she wasn't surprised when Leighton rested a hand at the small of her back. It felt good, to have Leighton's casual touches back.

"I'm going to take Victoria away from you now," Leighton told Mike and Michael.

"Yeah, fine," Mike said. He was trying to be a grouch, but Victoria could see that it didn't bother him at all. "Get out of here."

Victoria turned to Leighton with a grin. "Hear that? I'm all yours."

*

It wasn't that easy, of course. They had to stop in the locker room to retrieve what they'd left there - Leighton grabbed her phone, keys, and Metro card and left the rest for the morning - and Mike and Michael walked with them as far as the subway before letting them go. But then, then they could truly stop being Elle Masters and Victoria Teague, or even Detectives Meester and Asher, and just be Leighton and Victoria, on their way home together.

The subway was quiet, only a few other people out late, none of whom paid the slightest bit of attention to Leighton and Victoria taking a pair of seats. Victoria took the inside seat, and leaned her head on Leighton's shoulder as soon as they were both sitting down. Victoria's sigh matched the easing of tension in Leighton's shoulders.

"Okay?" Leighton put her arm around Victoria.

"Glad to be with you." It wasn't quite an answer, but it was probably good enough.

"Me too." Leighton leaned her cheek on Victoria's hair. "Let's not do that again for a while."

Victoria's laugh was harder than anything Leighton remembered hearing from her before. "Which part? Making NYPD history? Sleeping with the head of a crime syndicate who's still in love with his ex? Pretending we don't know each other?"

"Making NYPD history would be okay," Leighton said, keeping her voice soft. "But let's avoid the other stuff. I was thinking about being apart."

Victoria exhaled and turned her face into Leighton's shoulder. "No," she said, "let's not do that part either." After a moment, she muttered, "Sorry."

Leighton rubbed her arm. "It's okay." The clattering of the tracks took them closer and closer to home, but not fast enough. "You'll have to see the department shrink."

Victoria sat up, turning to look at Leighton. "I know. I know the drill. I've done undercover relationships before."

"I know," Leighton said, and she did. She'd been part of most of those undercover ops, and heard about the ones that were before she and Victoria had met. "But not like this."

"I'm fine," Victoria said, and then her face twisted. "No, I'm not, but it's not-"

Leighton wanted to tell her it didn't matter and pull Victoria to her, but she knew what this kind of op could do to a person, and it did matter.

"I don't want that to come between us." Victoria's hand gripped Leighton's tight enough to hurt. "I love you," she said, as fierce as Leighton had ever seen her. "I _want_ you. He doesn't get to take that away from us."

Leighton couldn't not touch her then, and she put her hand on Victoria's cheek. "No," she said, "he doesn't."

Victoria didn't move away, didn't so much as flinch, when Leighton kissed her. It was different now, better, without an audience, just them in an almost empty subway car. It could have been any night when they'd been out clubbing, except for all the ways it wasn't.

*

At first, Victoria couldn't help but compare Leighton's touch to Saporta's. She'd spent so much time with him, without being able to touch Leighton at all, that part of her had catalogued him as familiar. She shoved that away as much as she could and reminded herself that this was Leighton. This was where she belonged. It was easier after a while, because she'd spent so much more time with Leighton than she ever had with Saporta and because this was where she really wanted to be. Because Leighton's touch affected her in ways Saporta's never had.

They held hands, walking as fast as they could without running, from the station to their building. Their familiar building, the sight of which made Victoria's breath catch.

Leighton had her keys out, which was for the best because Victoria didn't think her hands were steady enough to manage hers.

The apartment was silent, no bark of greeting when Leighton opened the door. That was for the best too; Victoria would have fallen apart if she had been faced with Gizmo's adoration on top of the rest of the things that meant home to her.

Victoria didn't go any farther than the entryway, turning back so she was already in Leighton's space when she'd finished locking the door.

Leighton touched her cheek, the way she'd been doing all night, and this time the simple caress liquefied Victoria's insides. She surged against Leighton, pushing her into the door and kissing her hard. She knew how Leighton tasted, and it was right to taste her here, now, in their apartment that smelled and felt like them. No more Saporta. No more apartment designed for a party girl. Just home and Leighton and everything that was right with the world.

Leighton's arms were around her, holding her close, and then she wasn't kissing Victoria anymore. "V, are you sure?"

Victoria nodded, meeting Leighton's eyes so she could see how much she meant it. "Yes." She pushed her thigh between Leighton's, slipped her hand under her shirt. "I want you. I want _you_." She moved her hand up, skimming Leighton's stomach, until she could cup the curve of Leighton's breast. "Please," she whispered.

"God, I love you," Leighton choked out, and then she was kissing Victoria, and everything was right again. Leighton stopped being so careful with her; one of her hands found its way under Victoria's skirt and hiked her thigh up. It brought them closer, opened Victoria up to the pressure of Leighton's thigh on her cunt.

Victoria closed her eyes against the fierce rush of pleasure in that. She was wet, in a way she never had been for Saporta. Her body knew that this was Leighton, that she loved her, that she wanted her. That she chose her.

"Love you," she said, skimming the words over Leighton's cheek, into her hair, down her neck. "Love you, love you, love you."

*

Leighton gentled her touch, until she was cradling Victoria instead of grasping at her. "Victoria."

Victoria pulled back enough to shoot her a fierce look. "Leighton, if you don't fuck me right now." She left the threat unfinished, but Leighton had no doubt she was serious about it. And even if she'd had any, it would have disappeared with the way Victoria ground into her thigh.

Leighton laughed with sheer relief. It was really over. They were really together again. They were really home.

"Okay." Leighton skimmed her lips over Victoria's cheek to her mouth. "What do you want?"

"You," Victoria said, and then her hands were between them, at Leighton's waist. "Your pants off for starters."

Leighton waited for Victoria to get her pants unbuttoned before she kicked her shoes off and shimmied her pants down to go with them. Victoria stepped out of her shoes too. They weren't even close to the same height, but Victoria didn't tower over her quite so much in bare feet, and she was more like Leighton's Victoria without the heels that belonged to her cover identity.

Victoria moved her way down Leighton's chest, covering the space her shirt left bare with kisses that only made her want to keep Victoria there. When Victoria moved on, it was to kneel at Leighton's feet, and that wasn't an unpleasant change.

Victoria's hand pushed her shirt up, the gauzy fabric catching around her hands and keeping them from Leighton's skin. The heat of them filtered through the fabric, and it was followed by more heat from Victoria's mouth on her skin. It was her stomach first, brushing kisses that became harder and wetter as they moved down, until Victoria was sucking at the skin just above her underwear.

"You're going to have to do something here," Victoria said. "Shirt or panties."

In answer, Leighton tugged the shirt out of Victoria's grip and leaned away from the door far enough to pull it over her head. She dropped it somewhere - she didn't care where; it was Elle Masters' shirt, not hers - and looked down at Victoria looking up at her.

"You're beautiful," Victoria said. Her hand cupped Leighton's breast and her mouth nipped at Leighton's stomach.

"V." Leighton put both her hands in Victoria's hair. This was hers, theirs. This was her Victoria, telling her she was beautiful and touching her just the way she liked to be touched.

"Leighton." Victoria kissed her stomach one more time before she slipped her fingers under the waistband of Leighton's underwear and drew them down her legs, her hands skimming Leighton's skin the whole way.

Leighton stepped out of them, kicking them out of the way, and Victoria's hands slid all the way up again, one stopping at her hip and the other coming back to her breast. Leighton shifted her legs apart in invitation, and Victoria tipped her head into her hands and smiled up at her.

"Yes," Victoria said, and then her hand was moving again, from Leighton's hip to between her thighs.

*

Victoria could smell Leighton, the familiar scent of her arousal, so incredibly different from Saporta, tickling at her nose. She spread Leighton open as much as she could with just one hand - she didn't want to let go of Leighton's breast, not just yet, not when she could do both - and licked into her. The taste exploded across her tongue as familiar as the scent. It was real. This wasn't just her trying to remember after being apart for so long. This was Leighton's cunt on her tongue.

With one last caress to Leighton's breast, Victoria let go of it and put both hands on Leighton, pushing her thighs apart and spreading her cunt open for Victoria's mouth. Leighton was already wet, and she only got wetter as Victoria licked over her, into her. It had been too long, but not so long that Victoria didn't remember how to do this. She knew what Leighton liked when they were like this. She knew where to lick, where to use her fingers, how hard to push to make Leighton tremble.

"V," Leighton gasped above her. One of her hands tightened in Victoria's hair, and the other one left it.

Victoria looked up as much as she could without moving away from what she was doing. Leighton had slipped that hand into her bra and was touching her own breast. Victoria could feel herself getting wetter just watching it, and that was nothing compared to the way Leighton had to be feeling if the tilt of her cunt into Victoria's touch was anything to go by.

Victoria redoubled her efforts, finding the places Leighton liked to be touched and pressing into her clit. She wanted to make Leighton come for her. She wanted to feel it, to taste it, to know it was because of her.

It didn't take long. She really did know how to get Leighton off, and the desperation of not having been together for so long had to be helping. Leighton cried out and shuddered around her, and Victoria kept touching her all the way through it.

When Leighton stilled and the hand in Victoria's hair stopped holding her there and started pulling her away, Victoria licked all the way up Leighton's cunt one last time and pulled away. The smear of silver on the inside of Leighton's thigh surprised a short laugh out of her.

"What?" The word was slow and lazy, like Leighton couldn't quite get it out any other way.

"Makeup." Victoria pressed her lips to Leighton's thigh just above it. "My lightning bolt is all over you now."

Leighton's thumb stroked her cheek, just under whatever was left on her face. "It's an unusual look. Why'd you do it?"

Victoria almost turned away, but it was Leighton, and she didn't need to hide from her. "I didn't want him touching me anymore."

"He doesn't get to do it again," Leighton said. "You're mine." The simple declaration made Victoria's arousal flare up again.

*

Leighton pulled Victoria up and hugged her close, pulled her head down for a kiss. "Mine," she said into Victoria's mouth, and Victoria gave it back to her.

"Yours." Victoria's forehead rested on hers. "Yours, always." Victoria nipped at her lip. "Fuck me, please. Take me back."

Leighton's breath caught in her chest. There was nothing she wanted to do more. Now wasn't the time for gentleness. Now was the time for certainty, for possession. She shoved Victoria's skirt up over her hips and pulled her panties down far enough that they fell the rest of the way and Victoria could step out of them.

"Mine." Leighton kissed Victoria again, hitching Victoria's leg up over her hip while she did. It put more of their skin in contact, and it left Victoria open to her touch. Leighton wasted no time in taking advantage of it. She slid her hand up the inside of Victoria's thigh and in until she could stroke her fingers over Victoria's cunt.

Victoria wanted Leighton to take her back, so she did. Victoria was already wet to her touch, so she didn't try to get her there, just took advantage of it. She pushed two fingers into Victoria all at once. Saporta had been there, and he didn't get to be again. This was Leighton's.

Victoria's forehead dropped to her shoulder. "Yes," she said. "Please."

"Anything you want." Leighton pressed in, her fingers sinking all the way into Victoria and her palm arching over the rest of Victoria's cunt so she could use the heel of her hand on Victoria's clit. She cupped her other hand around the curve of Victoria's ass to hold her close.

Victoria cried out and ground her hips closer.

"I've got you," Leighton said. She stretched her fingers a little, rubbing into Victoria, feeling her get wetter around them. She set up a rhythm, moving the heel of her hand in soft pulses, turning it a little so Victoria could rub against the firmer side of her thumb.

Victoria said her name, and Leighton kissed her, taking her words and her breath, pulling back and saying, "Mine," just to watch Victoria's eyelids flutter and feel her hips stutter.

"Yours," Victoria gasped. "Please."

"Yes," Leighton said. She rubbed harder, twisted her fingers in Victoria, finding all the places she liked to be touched most. "Come on, V." She could tell from the way Victoria moved against her and the way her eyes were screwed shut that she was close. "Come for me. Just for me."

When she did, her cunt closing on Leighton's fingers and her thighs tensing, she said, " _Leighton_ ," sounding as desperate for her as she ever had.

"Mine." Leighton kissed her hard, her hand still moving to draw out Victoria's pleasure as long as possible. Victoria took it for a few moments before she drew back and let her leg drop, which Leighton took to mean she'd had enough. Leighton put both arms around her then, holding her close.

*

Victoria closed her eyes and breathed in the scents of the two of them and sex. Saporta had been good enough to get her off a couple of times, despite the fact that he wasn't who she wanted, but it hadn't left her feeling anything like she did now. Leighton made her come because she loved her, because they belonged to each other. It made all the difference.

"V? Victoria?" Leighton asked, and Victoria realized she was shaking in Leighton's arms.

Victoria's first instinct, from so much time pretending for Saporta, was to tell Leighton that she was fine, but she wasn't and she didn't ever have to lie to Leighton. She slipped her arms around Leighton. "Don't let go."

"I won't." Leighton held her closer, and that was better. She couldn't shake so much if Leighton was holding her still. "I've got you."

Victoria nodded, and buried her face in Leighton's neck. Leighton had her. She was back where she belonged. "Yours," she said, getting Leighton's, "Mine," right back.

Leighton nudged her back a fraction after a while. "Let's go to bed," she said. "It's been a long day. A lot of long days."

Victoria didn't want to, but she stepped away from Leighton so they could move. "Shower first." Leighton was doing a lot to bring her back from the op, but she needed to wash the rest of it off before she could sleep.

"Share?"

Victoria grabbed at Leighton's hand. "Yes." That would be even better, letting Leighton wash it off of her.

They didn't bother picking up the clothes scattering the entryway. They didn't need them, and they weren't in the way. Victoria stopped before they got to the bedroom and squirmed out of her dress and bra. She didn't want Victoria Teague's clothes in her bedroom, the real one. Bad enough that she was still wearing the lightning bolt, although that was better now that she and Leighton were sharing it.

Leighton turned on the shower and stood next to Victoria in front of the mirror while they waited for it to heat up. Except for the lightning bolt, they didn't look any different from how they did before the case.

Victoria watched in the mirror as Leighton kissed her shoulder.

"We can get Gizmo tomorrow." Leighton pulled away, came back with a square of cotton and the makeup remover from the shelf. "Call Anna in the morning and pick him up after work."

"Yeah." Victoria closed her eyes and let Leighton swipe at her mascara. "That'd be good."

Victoria opened her eyes to watch in the mirror when Leighton moved to the lightning bolt on her cheek. Leighton was watching her too, as the last of Victoria Teague was wiped away and tossed into the trash.

The lighting bolt was thick enough that it took two tries to get it all, but that was okay. Victoria was all too happy to have Leighton take her back one piece at a time.

*

Leighton stepped back from Victoria when she was done and swiped the cotton square over her thigh so she could get the rest of Victoria's armor out of their lives. "Shower." She nudged Victoria into it while she got a new piece of cotton and took off her own much less complicated makeup.

When Leighton pulled the curtain back, she found Victoria standing under the spray, her face turned up into it. "You'll dry out your skin."

Victoria smiled faintly. "I think it'll be fine just this once." She turned away from the water, though, and poured shampoo into her hand. "Come here."

Leighton let herself be tugged under the water to be wet down. "I was going to take care of you."

"You can do that next." Victoria's hands massaged the shampoo into her scalp, stroked down the length of her hair.

It was nice, to feel Victoria again. She'd been missing her touch, and now she could have as much as she wanted. She let Victoria have at her, keeping her eyes closed while Victoria rinsed her hair out, conditioned it, rinsed it again. Victoria came back after that with a loofah, her hand trailing in its wake, feeling softer for the contrast.

"My turn," Leighton said after Victoria got all the way down to her feet. She took the loofah away and turned Victoria into the spray to get her hair wet. Victoria's hair got the same careful treatment hers had. "The rest of you now," she murmured. She didn't want her touch to startle Victoria, and her eyes were still closed.

"'Kay."

Victoria stayed relaxed and pliant while Leighton touched her, trailing her hand after the loofah the same way Victoria had. The touch mattered. Skin to skin kept them connected more than anything else could, and they'd been without it for too long.

She had to stop eventually, and once Victoria was clean and rinsed, Leighton turned off the water and opened the shower curtain. "Bed," she said to Victoria to prod her out of the shower.

Victoria stepped out after her and took the towel Leighton handed her. Leighton took it back when she was dry and hung them both up. They took turns at the sink, Leighton letting Victoria brush her teeth and take out her contacts first. She wasn't surprised when Victoria lingered instead of going to bed without her. It meant they could go together.

Leighton turned out the light, and they made it to the bed in the light that filtered in around the edges of the blinds. Victoria lay down with her back to Leighton. Leighton took it as an invitation and spooned up to her, draping one arm over Victoria. Victoria melted into the touch, so it had to be okay. Leighton had missed her so much, and it felt so right to be in their bed together again.

"I love you," she said into Victoria's shoulder. "Always and forever."

Victoria's breath hitched, and she put her hand over the one Leighton had on her stomach. "Always and forever."

*

As primary witnesses in the case, Leighton and Victoria hadn't been allowed in the courtroom for any part of Saporta's trial other than their own testimony. It was just as well; Victoria didn't want to see Saporta any more than was absolutely necessary. She had been a cop long enough - and had enough sessions with the department shrink between the end of the case and the trial - that the defense counsel hadn't been able to rattle her, but she'd still come home from those days in court exhausted and snappish. Leighton had let her be, for which she was eternally grateful.

The day both sides presented closing arguments happened to fall between active cases for them.

"Get out of here," Lieutenant Beckett finally told them - all four of them, since Mike and Michael were also mostly pretending to do paperwork. "Go see what kind of crimes you can solve at the courthouse."

They didn't wait for him to reconsider, just turned off computers, grabbed jackets and purses, and took a car across town. They had a pattern for driving together: whoever's partner was driving took shotgun, and the other two got the backseat. Victoria couldn't decide if it was more comforting to pretend that everything was normal, or if she'd rather have had Leighton next to her.

The best place to find out what was happening was just outside the courtroom, and indeed that was where they found DA Stump, surrounded by his briefcase, a laptop, a junior ADA, and his Blackberry.

"No verdict yet?" Leighton asked.

"No," Stump said, and then he actually looked up from his phone. "No," he said, less rushed. "It's only been twenty minutes." He made a face at them. "Defense's closing took forever."

"Barakat likes to grandstand," the junior ADA said.

"Hurt his chances with the jury?" Michael asked.

Stump shrugged. "Some juries love him, some of them get sick of it and just want to go home. This one looked like it might be more on the sick of him side, but we won't know until the verdict comes in." He glanced down at his phone. "Excuse me."

The four of them drew away a little, making their own bunch in the corridor. There were benches, but Victoria at least was too jittery to sit. All that work, and it came down to twelve citizens who might not be sick of the defense.

"I hate waiting," she said.

"Me too." Mike pulled his cigarettes out of a pocket, tapped the box into his palm and put it back. "Wish you could still smoke in here."

Victoria made a face at him. "Bad enough we have to smell you. I don't want to smell a whole building full of smokers." The familiar argument calmed her nerves a little, and the way Leighton was standing next to her, easy and like she belonged there, helped even more.

*

They'd been waiting for the better part of an hour when Stump started repacking his briefcase. "Verdict's in."

They followed him and his junior ADA into the courtroom. There was the usual collection of reporters and other audience members, people who had to be Saporta's family, Barakat waiting at the defense table. Dueñas was just behind him.

The four of them filed into benches in the back row, Mike and Michael first, then Leighton, Victoria on the outside. Victoria was projecting calm, but Leighton could see the cracks in her demeanor, the tension at the edge of her smile and in the way she held herself. Better to put her where she could get away if she needed to.

Bailiffs brought Saporta in. Leighton could tell the moment he saw them; his face hardened into a mask of anger. Leighton squeezed Victoria's thigh, where he wouldn't be able to see it, and Victoria turned to look at her instead of Saporta.

Leighton kept an eye on Saporta. He glared at them for a moment longer before Dueñas caught his attention and everything about him softened when he looked at her.

"Okay?" Leighton murmured to Victoria as they stood when the bailiff announced the arrival of the judge.

"Yeah." Victoria's hand slipped into hers for a moment that ended when Judge McLynn banged the gavel and they all sat down again.

Nothing about the proceedings mattered until the jury foreman looked down at the slip of paper in his hand and said, "We the jury find the defendant guilty on all counts."

There was noise at the front of the courtroom, but it didn't matter. What mattered was the soft exhale from Victoria and the way she pressed her shoulder to Leighton's. They hadn't talked about it much, but trials didn't always go their way, and Leighton knew Victoria had been worried about this one more than others.

Leighton put her arm around Victoria and hugged her close. The judge dismissed the jury, set the sentencing date, and then it was over. Leighton glanced toward the front of the courtroom. Saporta glared at them again, before he and Dueñas leaned across the rail for a kiss the bailiffs put a quick stop to.

"Ready to go?" Leighton asked, soft enough that it wouldn't travel far.

Victoria nodded and smiled at her. It was a little rough around the edges, but it was there. "Yes."

"We'd better," Michael said. He had his phone out, and he flashed the screen at them. "Lieutenant wants us back at the station. He has a case for us."

Victoria's smile firmed up. "Right back into it."

Leighton bumped her shoulder against Victoria's as they filed out of the courtroom and got a quick grin in response. They both knew Saporta could still get out on appeal, but for now, he was off the streets and they had work to do.

**Author's Note:**

> When Cobra first posted the [video for "Good Girls Go Bad,"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix5z1bRz4Sc&ob=av3e) I promptly tried to give away [the plot bunny](http://not-it.dreamwidth.org/603.html) for the story the video had so clearly set up. Then there was [](http://bandgirlsbang.livejournal.com/profile)[**bandgirlsbang**](http://bandgirlsbang.livejournal.com/), and I used that as a reason to start writing the story. It kept growing and growing well beyond the due date, and I'm so pleased to be able to post this as part of the same challenge this year. Thank you to the mods for running it both years and giving me a reason to both start and finish this story. Thanks are also due to a great number of other people. [](http://lakeeffectgirl.livejournal.com/profile)[**lakeeffectgirl**](http://lakeeffectgirl.livejournal.com/), [](http://siryn99.livejournal.com/profile)[**siryn99**](http://siryn99.livejournal.com/), [](http://icanbreakthesky.livejournal.com/profile)[**icanbreakthesky**](http://icanbreakthesky.livejournal.com/), [](http://mayqueen517.livejournal.com/profile)[**mayqueen517**](http://mayqueen517.livejournal.com/), and [](http://unrequitedangst.livejournal.com/profile)[**unrequitedangst**](http://unrequitedangst.livejournal.com/) let me add them to the Google doc. Even if they weren't reading regularly, knowing they were there helped me keep writing. [](http://lakeeffectgirl.livejournal.com/profile)[**lakeeffectgirl**](http://lakeeffectgirl.livejournal.com/) and [](http://schuyler.livejournal.com/profile)[**schuyler**](http://schuyler.livejournal.com/) were extra awesome and beta read for me. (Any remaining mistakes are, of course, my own.) [](http://siryn99.livejournal.com/profile)[**siryn99**](http://siryn99.livejournal.com/) and [](http://schuyler.livejournal.com/profile)[**schuyler**](http://schuyler.livejournal.com/) helped me figure out a title. So many people that I have failed to keep track of them all answered questions and let me talk out things I was unsure of. You all have my thanks. I couldn't have done it without you. Huge thanks go to [](http://dwg.livejournal.com/profile)[**dwg**](http://dwg.livejournal.com/) for the art and [](http://delphinapterus.livejournal.com/profile)[**delphinapterus**](http://delphinapterus.livejournal.com/) and [](http://roadmarks.livejournal.com/profile)[**roadmarks**](http://roadmarks.livejournal.com/) for the mixes. They are all amazing, and there is more gushing about them in the respective posts. Title loosely taken from Stars' "The Night Starts Here."


End file.
